Blackstone and His Critics

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William Blackstones Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-69) is perhaps the most elegant and influential legal text in the history of the common law. By one estimate, Blackstone has been cited well over 10,000 times in American judicial opinions alone. Prominent in recent reassessment of Blackstone and his works, Wilfrid Prest also convened the Adelaide symposia which have now generated two collections of essays: Blackstone and his Commentaries: Biography, Law, History (2009), and Re-Interpreting Blackstones Commentaries: A Seminal Text in National and International Contexts (2014). This third collection focuses on Blackstone's critics and detractors. Leading scholars examine the initial reception of the Commentaries in the context of debates over law, religion and politics in eighteenth-century Britain and Ireland. Having shown Blackstones volumes to be a contested work of the Enlightenment, the remaining chapters assess critical responses to Blackstone on family law, the status of women and legal education in Britain and America. While Blackstone and his Commentaries have been widely lauded and memorialised in marble, this volume highlights the extent to which they have also attracted censure, controversy and disparagement.

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The gap in existing scholarship that is handsomely addressed in this volume is a critical analysis of Blackstones Commentaries and the uses to which they have been put ... In promoting a critical and informed view of the Commentaries, Blackstone and His Critics provides important intellectual stimulus to modern readers. -- Matthew Stubbs, Adelaide Law School * Comparative Legal History *

Author Bio

Anthony Page is a Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Tasmania. Wilfrid Prest is Emeritus Professor of History and of Law at the University of Adelaide.