This book examines the role of civil law in determining mental capacity over a five hundred year period in England and in New Jersey.
The influence of civil law on the history of madness has not hitherto been of major academic investigation. This body of law, established and developed over a five hundred year period, greatly influenced how those from England's propertied classes understood and responded to madness. Moreover, the civil law governing the response to madness in England was successfully exported into several of its colonies, including New Jersey. Drawing on a well-preserved and rare collection of trials in lunacy in New Jersey, this book reveals the important ties of civil law, local custom and perceptions of madness in transatlantic perspectives. This book will be highly relevant to scholars interested in law, medicine, psychiatry and madness studies, as well as contemporary issues in mental capacity and guardianship.
By:
James Moran
Imprint: Manchester University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 216mm,
Width: 138mm,
Spine: 16mm
Weight: 463g
ISBN: 9781526133038
ISBN 10: 1526133032
Series: Social Histories of Medicine
Pages: 272
Publication Date: 14 May 2019
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
General/trade
,
Primary
,
Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
List of tables Acknowledgments 1 Introduction: civil law and madness in transatlantic context 2 Suing for a lunatic: lunacy investigation law, 1320-1890 3 Indefinite mental states: negotiating the legal definition of madness 4 Trials of madness: family struggles over property in England 5 Care and protection: managing madness in England 6 Atlantic crossing: lunacy law as colonial inheritance 7 Family, friends and neighbours: localizing madness in New Jersey 8 Asylum in the community: managing madness in New Jersey 9 Orders in lunacy: lunacy investigation law and the asylum reconsidered 10 Conclusion Bibliography Index -- .
James Moran is Professor in History at the University of Prince Edward Island
Reviews for Madness on Trial: A Transatlantic History of English Civil Law and Lunacy
'James Moran has provided an important addition to the historiography of psychiatry and mental health provision in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. His new book contributes significantly to shifting the historical emphasis away from asylums and towards extra-institutional approaches to the card of the insane.' Journal Social History of Medicine 'Madness on Trial, introduces a 'treasure trove' of an alternative archive, in the form of documents relating to civil proceedings in lunacy from eighteenth- and nineteenth-century New Jersey. [it] is a welcome addition to the history of mental illness, and is a very useful and accessible work for anyone interested in mental health law and community or family practices of care.' Journal of The Historical Association -- .
