Rage for Order : The British Empire and the Origins of International Law, 1800–1850

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. Lauren Benton and Lisa Ford uncover the lost history of Britain’s global empire of law in colonial conflicts and bureaucratic dispatches rather than legal treatises and case law. Tracing constitutional politics around the world, Rage for Order shows that attempts to refashion the British imperial constitution touched on all the controversial issues of the day, from slavery to revolution. Scandals in turbulent colonies targeted petty despots and augmented the power of the Crown to intervene in the administration of justice. Campaigns to police piracy and slave trading linked British interests to the stability of politically fragmented regions. Dull bureaucrats dominated legal reform, but they did not act in isolation. Indigenous peoples, slaves, convicts, merchants, and sailors all scrambled to play a part in reordering the empire and the world beyond it. Yet, through it all, legal reform focused on promoting order, not advancing human rights or charting liberalism. Rage for Order maps a formative phase in world history when imperial, not international, law anchored visions of global order. This sweeping story changes the way we think about the legacy of the British Empire and the meaning of international law today. "Rage for Order surveys the sprawling, often frenetic attempt to redesign law in the British Empire. Across the world in the early nineteenth century, colonial officials, indigenous subjects, settlers, convicts, sailors, soldiers, and slaves participated in contests that shaped a new British imperial constitution. Contemporaries imagined that law would provide a blueprint for the empire and for global order. Within turbulent British colonies, legal reform targeted petty despots and augmented the power of the crown to intervene in the administration of justice. At the edges of empire, British campaigns to police slave trading and piracy linked imperial interests to emerging world regions and conjured new sovereignties. Rage for Order breaks new ground in the history of international law by looking beyond the treatises of jurists and instead tracing vernacular constitutional politics across the globe--in new crown colonies such as Ceylon and Trinidad, expanding settler colonies such as New South Wales and Upper Canada, established plantation colonies in the West Indies and Indian Ocean, and regions not under direct British control, from the South Atlantic to the eastern Mediterranean to the Pacific islands. By uncovering the lost history of a global empire of law, Benton and Ford reveal the way imperial structures continue to influence our understandings of world order and international law."-- Provided by publisher 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 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 A Global Empire Of Law -- Controlling Despotic Dominions -- The Commissioner's World -- The Promise Of Protection -- Ordering The Oceans -- An Empire Of States -- A Great Disorder. Lauren Benton And Lisa Ford. Includes Bibliographical References (pages 199-272) And Index.