Imagination and the Colonial Challenge to English Legal Historiography

By exploring the experience and attitudes to law of an apparently fictitious state, this chapter invites readers to look again at the nature of, and difficulties involved in, the subjugation of other people and places to the rule of English law. That the examples chosen are far from merely imaginary is then discussed. The experience of viewing legal experience through the lens of a ‘different’ country may open up different perspectives on the legal history of England itself and even on the limitations of traditional jurisprudential analyses.