The Cambridge Constitutional History of the United Kingdom
The Cambridge Constitutional History of the United Kingdom
H. Kumarasingham, University of Edinburgh
$130.00
USDFeaturing contributions from leading scholars of history, law and politics, this path-breaking two-volume work traces the development of the United Kingdom's constitution from Anglo-Saxon times and explores its role in the creation, exercise and control of public power. Chapters in Volume One, entitled 'Exploring the Constitution', approach the constitution and its history from various scholarly perspectives, and provide historically sensitive discussions of constitutional actors and institutions, and of political traditions and transformations of the constitution. Together, the two volumes form the first, wide-ranging history of the constitution to be published for decades. By their cross-disciplinary approach, taking account of the latest legal, political and historical scholarship on the constitution, they fill a large gap in the literature of the constitution, and in political thought and British history.
- Deepens understanding of the constitution as a legal, historical and political phenomenon, by bringing together perspectives of scholars of law, history and politics
- The essays in this, the first volume of a two-volume work, approach the history of the constitution thematically rather than chronologically
- The first wide-ranging history of the United Kingdom's constitution to be published for more than 50 years
Reviews & endorsements
'Peter Cane and Harshan Kumarasingham have gathered together an outstanding group of authors, and they have produced a work of the highest quality … the present work is genuinely a constitutional history of the entire United Kingdom and its constituent parts … Unlike previous constitutional histories … this work is jointly authored by historians, lawyers and political scientists. This is of enormous value in making sense of our constitution, as it is based not only on legal documents, or on political understandings and practices, but on a combination of law, politics and practice which encompasses more than one academic discipline.' The Right Honourable The Lord Reed of Allermuir, President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom
'A formidable and valuable assemblage of essays … the first new and capacious treatment in some fifty years of UK constitutional history … the result is an important work of reference' Dame Linda Colley, New York Review of Books
'The editors 'steer away from stale orthodoxies and insular complacency, interrogating instead Whig assumptions about English exceptionalism … The most significant departure from the old orthodoxy here is the editors’ remapping of this most stubbornly Anglocentric of fields. They have commissioned essays on a plurality of jurisdictions and legislatures, not just Scottish, Irish and Welsh, but also the wider empire and Commonwealth.’ Colin Kidd, London Review of Books
Product details
November 2023Hardback
9781009277754
507 pages
236 × 158 × 35 mm
1.08kg
Available
.jpg)
Table of Contents
- Part I. Perspectives:
- 1. The historical constitution H. Kumarasingham
- 2. Law and the constitution Peter Cane
- 3. Political constitutionalism Richard Bellamy
- 4. The economic constitution Tony Prosser
- 5. Religion and the constitution to 1688 Pippa Catterall
- 6. Religion and the constitution since the glorious revolution Pippa Catterall
- 7. The social democratic constitution K. D. Ewing
- 8. The constitution of rights Peter Cane
- 9. The people and the constitution Vernon Bogdanor
- 10. Constitutional theory and thought Jeffrey Goldsworthy
- Part II. Actors and institutions:
- 11. Monarchy Edward Cavanagh
- 12. Legislatures Mike Gordon
- 13. The executive and the administration Janet McLean
- 14. Judiciaries Joshua Getzler
- 15. Coercive institutions Brice Dickson
- 16. Locality, regionality, and centrality Luke Blaxill
- 17. Political parties Robert Crowcroft
- PART III. Politics:
- 18. Conservatism Asanga Welikala
- 19. Liberalism Emily Jones
- 20. Socialism Stephen Sedley
- 21. Unionism James Mitchell and Alan Convery
- 22. Nationalism Michael Keating.
