Rage for Order

The British Empire and the Origins of International Law, 1800–1850

Lauren Benton, Lisa Ford, Lisa Ford

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9780674986855
  9780674737464
• eBook ISBN:
  9780674972780
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: 19th Century History
• Index: Law

International law burst on the scene as a new field in the late nineteenth century. Where did it come from? Rage for Order finds the origins of international law in empires—especially in the British Empire's sprawling efforts to refashion the imperial constitution and use it to order the world in the early part of that century.

"Rage for Order is a book of exceptional range and insight. Its successes are numerous. At a time when questions of law and legalism are attracting more and more attention from historians of 19th-century Britain and its empire, but still tend to be considered within very specific contexts, its sweep and ambition are particularly welcome…Rage for Order is a book that deserves to have major implications both for international legal history, and for the history of modern imperialism."
—Alex Middleton, Reviews in History

"Rage for Order offers a fresh account of nineteenth-century global order that takes us beyond worn liberal and post-colonial narratives into a new and more adventurous terrain."
—Jens Bartelson, Australian Historical Studies

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Chapter 1. A Global Empire of Law
• Chapter 2. Controlling Despotic Dominions
• Chapter 3. The Commissioner’s World
• Chapter 4. The Promise of Protection
• Chapter 5. Ordering the Oceans
• Chapter 6. An Empire of States
• Chapter 7. A Great Disorder
• Notes
• Acknowledgments
• Index