Dominik Nagl, No Part of the Mother Country, but Distinct Dominions - Rechtstransfer, Staatsbildung und Governance in England, Massachusetts und South Carolina, 1630-1769 (= Studies in North American History, Politics and Society, Bd. 33), Berlin: LIT, 2013, 792 S., 69.90 EUR, br., ISBN 978-3-643-11817-2.
No Part of the Mother Country is about colonial state formation and the making of modern America. Written from an "Atlantic" perspective, it connects the historiographical debates on the genesis of statehood in early modern Europe and colonial North America. The book has been called a "key German contribution" to the field of Early American Studies (sehepunkte 14/2014).
The study reconstructs the transfer of political, legal and administrative structures and institutions from England to Massachusetts and South Carolina. It examines the bodies of political decision-making, the legal system, the mechanisms of law enforcement, poor relief and the regulation of slavery. No Part of the Mother Country pronounces their colonial remodeling and transformative interrelationship by tracing the process of modification that brought about fundamental institutional change. Combining an interpretation of colonial laws with an examination of a variety of related manuscript and printed sources, the study shows that all segments of the colonial society actively participated in creating the examined mechanisms of rule by forms of negotiation and resistance. The thorough analysis of the most important legal and administrative structures in early modern England and the comparison with their colonial counterparts explains how local factors decisively shaped the colonial reception and adaption of English law and institutions. This generated dissimilar and distinct governance structures in each colony. The study also shows that law served as an important imperial connective bond, but that this law was anything but a unified whole. It included much more than the English common law tradition. The study thus analyzes the relations of the American colonies to their governing mother country as a complex web of mutual influence and interaction.
No Part of the Mother Country calls into question the application of the notions "center" and "periphery" in Atlantic history in which the narratives generated out of world systems theory tried to capture the colonial experience. Moreover, it challenges traditional views of early modern state formation that were mainly concerned with the growth of centralized monarchical bureaucracies and conceived state formation as a top-down process. By contrast, No Part of the Mother Country argues that colonial state formation should rather be understood as a multi-level process driven to a large extent by colonial actors.
Dominik Nagl, No Part of the Mother Country, but Distinct Dominions - Rechtstransfer, Staatsbildung und Governance in England, Massachusetts und South Carolina, 1630-1769 (= Studies in North American History, Politics and Society, Bd. 33), Berlin: LIT, 2013, 792 S., 69.90 EUR, br., ISBN 978-3-643-11817-2.
No Part of the Mother Country is about colonial state formation and the making of modern America. Written from an "Atlantic" perspective, it connects the historiographical debates on the genesis of statehood in early modern Europe and colonial North America. The book has been called a "key German contribution" to the field of Early American Studies (sehepunkte 14/2014).
The study reconstructs the transfer of political, legal and administrative structures and institutions from England to Massachusetts and South Carolina. It examines the bodies of political decision-making, the legal system, the mechanisms of law enforcement, poor relief and the regulation of slavery. No Part of the Mother Country pronounces their colonial remodeling and transformative interrelationship by tracing the process of modification that brought about fundamental institutional change. Combining an interpretation of colonial laws with an examination of a variety of related manuscript and printed sources, the study shows that all segments of the colonial society actively participated in creating the examined mechanisms of rule by forms of negotiation and resistance. The thorough analysis of the most important legal and administrative structures in early modern England and the comparison with their colonial counterparts explains how local factors decisively shaped the colonial reception and adaption of English law and institutions. This generated dissimilar and distinct governance structures in each colony. The study also shows that law served as an important imperial connective bond, but that this law was anything but a unified whole. It included much more than the English common law tradition. The study thus analyzes the relations of the American colonies to their governing mother country as a complex web of mutual influence and interaction.
No Part of the Mother Country calls into question the application of the notions "center" and "periphery" in Atlantic history in which the narratives generated out of world systems theory tried to capture the colonial experience. Moreover, it challenges traditional views of early modern state formation that were mainly concerned with the growth of centralized monarchical bureaucracies and conceived state formation as a top-down process. By contrast, No Part of the Mother Country argues that colonial state formation should rather be understood as a multi-level process driven to a large extent by colonial actors.
Dominik Nagl, No Part of the Mother Country, but Distinct Dominions - Rechtstransfer, Staatsbildung und Governance in England, Massachusetts und South Carolina, 1630-1769 (= Studies in North American History, Politics and Society, Bd. 33), Berlin: LIT, 2013, 792 S., 69.90 EUR, br., ISBN 978-3-643-11817-2.
No Part of the Mother Country is about colonial state formation and the making of modern America. Written from an "Atlantic" perspective, it connects the historiographical debates on the genesis of statehood in early modern Europe and colonial North America. The book has been called a "key German contribution" to the field of Early American Studies (sehepunkte 14/2014).
The study reconstructs the transfer of political, legal and administrative structures and institutions from England to Massachusetts and South Carolina. It examines the bodies of political decision-making, the legal system, the mechanisms of law enforcement, poor relief and the regulation of slavery. No Part of the Mother Country pronounces their colonial remodeling and transformative interrelationship by tracing the process of modification that brought about fundamental institutional change. Combining an interpretation of colonial laws with an examination of a variety of related manuscript and printed sources, the study shows that all segments of the colonial society actively participated in creating the examined mechanisms of rule by forms of negotiation and resistance. The thorough analysis of the most important legal and administrative structures in early modern England and the comparison with their colonial counterparts explains how local factors decisively shaped the colonial reception and adaption of English law and institutions. This generated dissimilar and distinct governance structures in each colony. The study also shows that law served as an important imperial connective bond, but that this law was anything but a unified whole. It included much more than the English common law tradition. The study thus analyzes the relations of the American colonies to their governing mother country as a complex web of mutual influence and interaction.
No Part of the Mother Country calls into question the application of the notions "center" and "periphery" in Atlantic history in which the narratives generated out of world systems theory tried to capture the colonial experience. Moreover, it challenges traditional views of early modern state formation that were mainly concerned with the growth of centralized monarchical bureaucracies and conceived state formation as a top-down process. By contrast, No Part of the Mother Country argues that colonial state formation should rather be understood as a multi-level process driven to a large extent by colonial actors.
Dominik Nagl, No Part of the Mother Country, but Distinct
Dominions - Rechtstransfer, Staatsbildung und Governance in
England, Massachusetts und South Carolina, 1630-1769 (= Studies in North American History, Politics and Society, Bd. 33), Berlin: LIT, 2013, 792 S., 69.90 EUR, br., ISBN 978-3-643-11817-2. No Part of the Mother Country is about colonial state formation and the making of modern America. Written from an "Atlantic" perspective, it connects the historiographical debates on the genesis of statehood in early modern Europe and colonial North America. The book has been called a "key German contribution" to the field of Early American Studies (sehepunkte 14/2014). The study reconstructs the transfer of political, legal and administrative structures and institutions from England to Massachusetts and South Carolina. It examines the bodies of political decision-making, the legal system, the mechanisms of law enforcement, poor relief and the regulation of slavery. No Part of the Mother Country pronounces their colonial remodeling and transformative interrelationship by tracing the process of modification that brought about fundamental institutional change. Combining an interpretation of colonial laws with an examination of a variety of related manuscript and printed sources, the study shows that all segments of the colonial society actively participated in creating the examined mechanisms of rule by forms of negotiation and resistance. The thorough analysis of the most important legal and administrative structures in early modern England and the comparison with their colonial counterparts explains how local factors decisively shaped the colonial reception and adaption of English law and institutions. This generated dissimilar and distinct governance structures in each colony. The study also shows that law served as an important imperial connective bond, but that this law was anything but a unified whole. It included much more than the English common law tradition. The study thus analyzes the relations of the American colonies to their governing mother country as a complex web of mutual influence and interaction. No Part of the Mother Country calls into question the application of the notions "center" and "periphery" in Atlantic history in which the narratives generated out of world systems theory tried to capture the colonial experience. Moreover, it challenges traditional views of early modern state formation that were mainly concerned with the growth of centralized monarchical bureaucracies and conceived state formation as a top-down process. By contrast, No Part of the Mother Country argues that colonial state formation should rather be understood as a multilevel process driven to a large extent by colonial actors.