By Birth or Consent Children Law and the Anglo American Revolution Review
408 pp., 6.125 x 9.25, 2 illus., appends., notes, index
- Paperback ISBN: 978-0-8078-5832-5
Published: February 2007 - eBook ISBN: 978-0-8078-3912-half dozen
Published: December 2012
Published past the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Civilization and the University of North Carolina Press
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Published past the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Civilisation and the University of North Carolina Press
Awards & distinctions
2008 Order of the Coif Book Honour, Guild of the Coif
2006 Cromwell Prize, American Society for Legal History
2006 James Willard Hurst Prize, Police force and Society Clan
In mid-sixteenth-century England, people were born into authorisation and responsibility based on their social condition. Thus elite children could designate holding or serve in Parliament, while children of the poorer sort might be forced to sign labor contracts or be hanged for arson or picking pockets. By the tardily eighteenth century, still, English and American law began to emphasize contractual relations based on informed consent rather than on birth condition. In Past Birth or Consent, Holly Brewer explores how the changing legal status of children illuminates the struggle over consent and status in England and America. As it emerged through religious, political, and legal debates, the concept of meaningful consent challenged the older gild of birthright and became central to the development of democratic political theory.
The struggle over meaningful consent had tremendous political and social consequences, affecting the whole order of club. Information technology granted new powers to fathers and guardians at the aforementioned time that it challenged those of masters and kings. Brewer's analysis reshapes the debate about the origins of modern political ideology and makes connections between Reformation religious debates, Enlightenment philosophy, and autonomous political theory.
Virtually the Author
Holly Brewer is associate professor of history and Burke Chair of American History at the University of Maryland.
For more than data about Holly Brewer, visit the Author Page.
Reviews
"[A] idea-provoking written report of a neglected and yet immensely important topic."--Canadian Journal of History
"Brewer's book, Past Birth or Consent . . . seeks to explore the political and legal foundation of the idea of informed consent that emerged during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. . . . The cultural implications spawned by . . . legal and philosophical developments are presented here with a certain flair and enthusiasm. Moreover, the use of court cases, county records, and other original sources helps to root [the] story about children and the law in fact."--Times Literary Supplement
"The author of this book has written two books, magnificently intertwined. . . . There is no uncertainty that Brewer'due south book will take a privileged place in all future accounts of childhood and political thought in the Atlantic earth."--Historian
"By Nativity or Consent is an intellectual feast; it is deeply learned and provocative."--William and Mary Quarterly
"[A] highly original and powerfully argued volume. . . . Brewer shows that questions most the nature of babyhood and the powers and obligations of parents were key to the great debates among early on modern religious, political, and legal thinkers over religious and political dominance. Her approach yields important new insights into the origins of modern ideas about children and families, likewise as the sources of modern Anglo-American political and legal thought and the limits inherent in its promise of political equality for all."--The Journal of American History
"Through an exploration of the fundamental shift in legal assumptions about babyhood, adulthood, and individual responsibility, Brewer offers new perspective on the roiling, centuries-long fight over the significant of consent, as articulated by Locke and others, and its place in political power and the social gild."--Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History
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