A History of Law in Canada is an important three-volume project. Volume One begins at a time just prior to European contact and continues to the 1860s, Volume Two covers the half century after Confederation, and Volume Three covers the period from the beginning of the First World War to 1982, with a postscript taking the account to approximately 2000.

The history of law includes substantive law, legal institutions, legal actors, and legal culture. The authors assume that since 1500 there have been three legal systems in Canada - the Indigenous, the French, and the English. At all times, these systems have co-existed and interacted, with the relative power and influence of each being more or less dominant in different periods.

The history of law cannot be treated in isolation, and this book examines law as a dynamic process, shaped by and affecting other histories over the long term. The law guided and was guided by economic developments, was influenced and moulded by the nature and trajectory of political ideas and institutions, and variously exacerbated or mediated intercultural exchange and conflict. These themes are apparent in this examination, and through most areas of law including land settlement and tenure, and family, commercial, constitutional, and criminal law.

About the Author
Philip Girard is a professor of law at Osgoode Hall Law School at York University. Jim Phillips is a professor in the Faculty of Law and the Department of History at the University of Toronto. R. Blake Brown is a professor of history at Saint Mary's University.

Reviews

"[This] is the best synthesis of a field I have ever seen and should be required reading for all historians of Canada. It is astonishingly all-encompassing, examining not just the history of the evolution of the Canadian constitution, [...] derived from France and Britain, but also the history of the Indigenous system of law."

-- Philip Buckner, University of New Brunswick * British Journal of Canadian Studies *


Awards
Short-listed for Walter Owen Book Prize awarded by The Canadian Foundation for Legal Research 2019 (Canada) and 2019 CLSA Book Prize awarded by the Canadian Law and Society Association 2019 (Canada).



Book Information
ISBN 9781487547462
Author Philip Girard
Format Paperback
Page Count 928
Imprint University of Toronto Press
Publisher University of Toronto Press
Weight(grams) 1220g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 51mm