(Source: University of Chicago Press)
University of
Chicago Press has just published a book on the legal transformation of New York
during the Revolutionary War.
ABOUT THE BOOK
How does a
popular uprising transform itself from the disorder of revolution into a legal
system that carries out the daily administration required to govern? Americans
faced this question during the Revolution as colonial legal structures
collapsed under the period’s disorder. Yet by the end of the war, Americans
managed to rebuild their courts and legislatures, imbuing such institutions
with an authority that was widely respected. This remarkable transformation
came about in unexpected ways. Howard Pashman here studies the surprising role
played by property redistribution—seizing it from Loyalists and transferring it
to supporters of independence—in the reconstruction of legal order during the
Revolutionary War.
Building a
Revolutionary State looks closely at one state, New York, to understand the
broader question of how legal structures emerged from an insurgency. By examining law as New Yorkers experienced
it in daily life during the war, Pashman reconstructs a world of revolutionary
law that prevailed during America’s transition to independence. In doing so,
Pashman explores a central paradox of the revolutionary era: aggressive enforcement of partisan property
rules actually had stabilizing effects that allowed insurgents to build legal
institutions that enjoyed popular support.
Tracing the transformation from revolutionary disorder to legal order,
Building a New Revolutionary State gives us a radically fresh way to understand
the emergence of new states.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Howard Pashman
is an associate attorney at Karlin Associates, LLC in Chicago. He was a
research fellow at the Indiana University Center on the Global Legal
Profession.
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction
1. Law and
Property in Colonial New York
2. Confronting
Disorder
3. A Bonanza of
Tory Goods
4. The Enemies
of the State
Conclusion
Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Index
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