Author: Robert Wallace File Type: pdf

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Author: Christopher Michael Curtis File Type: pdf Jeffersons Freeholders and the Politics of Ownership in the Old Dominion explores the historical processes by which Virginia was transformed from a British colony into a Southern slave state. It focuses on changing conceptualizations of ownership and emphasizes the persistent influence of the English common law on Virginias postcolonial political culture. The book explains how the traditional characteristics of land tenure became subverted by the dynamic contractual relations of a commercial economy and assesses the political consequences of the law reforms that were necessitated by these developments. Nineteenth-century reforms seeking to reconcile the common law with modern commercial practices embraced new democratic expressions about the economic and political power of labor, and thereby encouraged the idea that slavery was an essential element in sustaining republican government in Virginia. By the 1850s, the ownership of human property had replaced the ownership of land as the distinguishing basis for political power, with tragic consequences for the Old Dominion. **Review Christopher Curtiss book is a remarkable and welcome hybrid, its research meticulous and exhaustive. Curtiss judgments about the evidence are judicious and balanced. His arguments and conclusions are important and portable, for he demonstrates how the cultural and legal effects of commercial developments remapped Virginians understanding of the justification of popular political participation, and even of political legitimacy. The concluding chapter on a new jurisprudence is a tour de force. Jeffersons Freeholders is a book for many seasons. Gerard V. Bradley, Unviersity of Notre Dame Law School In recent decades a number of talented scholars have greatly enriched our understanding of both the political and the legal history of the antebellum South. Most of these scholars, however, have concentrated on either the political or the legal rather than weaving together developments in both realms. Chris Curtiss new book, Jeffersons Freeholders and the Politics of Ownership in the Old Dominion, is the exception to the rule. In this rigorously argued study, Curtis details the manner in which changing conceptions of property and changes in the legal system at once underpinned and reinforced changes in politics and the political order in one key southern state. Curtiss estimable scholarship will compel all students of southern history to rethink the material and moral bases upon which the region was grounded. Peter A. Coclanis, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Christopher Michael Curtiss Jeffersons Freeholders and the Politics of Ownership in the Old Dominion is nothing short of seminal. It will compel the re-study of development of slave society not only in Virginia, but, with appropriate adjustments, for the Old South. Rarely do we find legal, intellectual, and economic history so well integrated and graced by such penetrating insight. The implications of the shif in the nature of property relations illuminate the evolution of the yeomanry as readily as they do that of the planters. Eugene D. Genovese, co-author with Elizabeth Fox-Genovese of The Mind of the Master Class, Slavery in White and Black, and Fatal Self-Deception This book is impressive from various perspectives. Chris Curtis has written an engaging historical treatise on Virginian property relations and law from colonial days to the ante-bellum era. He adroitly demonstrates how local legal history provides a window into law and legal change regionally, nationally and internationally, in the Common Law world. Moreover, by tapping political, economic and social records he has produced a rich narrative of the changing imperatives of political thought and action and economic realities that influenced the development of local law in this slave holding jurisdiction, and explain its inner contradictions. This book merits a broad readership. John McLaren, University of Victoria Christopher Curtiss provocative new book is a welcome addition to the literature on Revolutionary and antebellum Virginia. Focusing on land law, Jeffersons Freeholders charts the Old Dominions progress from the agrarian commonwealth Jefferson envisioned in 1776 to the slave-based democracy of the 1851 state constitution. White manhood suffrage marked both the triumph of democracy in Virginia and Virginias emergence as a slave state committed to the peculiar institutions perpetuation. Curtiss smart and original study deserves a wide readership. Peter S. Onuf, University of Virginia, author of Jeffersons Empire The Language of American Nationhood Essential. Choice The great strength of this book derives from its interwoven analysis of statutes, litigation, politics, and political theory. Turk McCleskey, Virginia Magazine Curtis offers an erudite study of the legal basis of property ownership in Virginia between the American Revolution and the 1850s. The Journal of American History In his doggedly intelligent study of the legal culture of possession in late colonial and antebellum Virginia, Christopher Michael Curtis shows that the abundance of scholarship on Thomas Jefferson has a point beyond the hagiographic Jefferson remains an important point of departure for understanding the early south. Christopher Tomlins, Journal of Southern History Book Description Jeffersons Freeholders explores the processes by which Virginia was transformed from a British colony into a Southern slave state. Focusing on ideas of ownership, the book emphasizes the persistent influence of English common law on the states political culture. It uniquely details how the traditional principles of land tenure were subverted by the economic and political changes of the nineteenth century and how they fostered law reforms that encouraged the idea that slavery should replace land ownership as the distinguishing basis for political power.

Author: Beltrán Roca File Type: pdf This book analyses social movements and radical political parties strategies in Spain, Greece, Portugal and Italy from 2008 to today. Events in 2011 such as the Arab Spring and the indignados movement in Spain initiated a new cycle of social protest. This book explores how the economic crisis and policies of austerity have transformed and continue to transform social movements, trade unions and radical political parties in Southern Europe. The economic crisis has led to a rise in protest movements, which confront political institutions and conventional forms of democracy, and develop new spatial and organisational strategies. This book examines these cases, in addition to those groups who, contrastingly, have used institutional politics to achieve their aims, such as new political parties like Podemos in Spain or Movimento 5 Stelle in Italy. Analysing the extent to which there has been a change in approach when it comes to contesting neo-liberal capitalism, this book makes an important contribution to the study of social movements and radical politics. With a comparative perspective and an emphasis on studying the largely unexplored recent social and political dynamics in the European periphery, this book is essential reading for students, scholars and activists interested in social movements, radical politics and European politics more generally. **