December 1, 2012 – 9:02 am
Today I came across an interesting post, via Letters of Note, which details a letter which a former slave, Jourdon Anderson, wrote to his former master, Colonel P.H. Anderson of Big Spring, Tennessee. Colonel Anderson had written to Jourdon Anderson, requesting him to come back to work on his farm. According to sources of the [...]
September 5, 2012 – 5:53 pm
The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there. (L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between) I was forcibly reminded of the truth of Hartley’s statement while undertaking some legal research today. I have been conducting research into the doctrine of specific performance, which is when a court orders a party to a contract to perform [...]
By Legal Eagle
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Posted in Academia, England, History, Human/Civil rights, Law, Personal liberty, scotland, Society
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Also tagged abolition, Equity, James Somerset, Joseph Knight, Lord Hardwicke, Lord Mansfield, pearne v lisle, serfs, slave labour, slavery, slaves, Somersett's Case, specific performance
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Padova In Padova particularly, one gets a real sense of the vigour of the Northern Italian emergence from the Dark Ages, a sense of emerging cities full of bustling purpose and underlying confidence about the possibilities of the future. While we were in Padova Friday night, wandering along discussing the many ways Northern Italy was [...]
My tips for long flights are: Stick to water on the flight; Have salt; Get massages. (Had a massage the evening I left and at the Dubai stopover. So worth it.) Malta Australian cuisine being Mediterrasian means that, when one gets to the Mediterranean, the food is familiar. There are lots of construction cranes dotting [...]
By Lorenzo
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Posted in Economics, History, Law, Personal, Politics, Society
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Also tagged Children, culture, Flying, Law, Malta, personal experience, Sicily, tort, travel
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[LE: Something I often wonder about when studying history is: why do certain civilisations develop in certain ways, and others (which are equally technologically advanced, if not more so) do not develop in the same way? I suppose it's one of the reasons why I enjoy speculative fiction so much: speculative fiction plays a game [...]
By Legal Eagle
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Posted in Guest Post, History, Law, Middle east, Religion
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Also tagged brahmins, china, christianity, divinely ordained law, europe, global history, Guest Post, Hinduism, industrial revolution, islam, japan, Judaism, Lorenzo, Mesoamerica, Middle east, Sharia, sharia law, South East Asia, Western Civilisation
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February 9, 2012 – 7:40 am
On 2 February 2012, I attended the launch of Russell Blackford’s new book, Freedom of Religion and the Secular State. I’ve finished the book so I thought I’d write a brief review as well as some comments on the visible move to secularism in one of my areas of study, trusts law. Blackford’s central thesis [...]
By Legal Eagle
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Posted in Academia, Australia, Blogging, Free Speech, History, Human/Civil rights, Law, Personal liberty, Philosophy, Politics, Public Policy, Religion, Skeptics, Society
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Also tagged Boo Hoos, burqa, Free Speech, freedom of religion, Freedom of Religion & The Secular State, John Locke, Law, Religion, Russell Blackford, secularism, society, trust law, Trusts
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December 3, 2011 – 1:14 pm
The High Court has recently overturned the right to refuse to give evidence against one’s spouse at common law in Australian Crime Commission v Stoddart [2011] HCA 47. It’s a fascinating decision, as it represents a further very large crack in the crumbling notion that husband and wife are one person. As I’ve mentioned here, [...]
By Legal Eagle
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Posted in Feminism, History, Human/Civil rights, Law, Marriage, Personal liberty, Taxation
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Also tagged australia, australian crime commission, common law, coverture, coverture marriage, criminal law, England, evidence, evidence law, High Court of Australia, husbands, Marriage, society, spousal privilege, stoddart, taxation law, wives
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September 26, 2011 – 9:59 am
Apologies that I haven’t been around lately. I have mostly recovered from my chest ailments (residual cough only), but my book manuscript is due to be sent to the publishers at the end of this week, so I have been frantically reading and re-reading the manuscript. Via Kerryn Goldsworthy, I became aware of this great [...]
By Legal Eagle
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Posted in Academia, Books, History, Internet, Law, Literature, Society
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Also tagged Academia, intelligence, Maria Tumarkin, Meanjin, morals, Orlando Figes, Rachel Polonsky, Robert Service, russia, Stalin
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Last night my husband and I were watching the first episode of A History of Ancient Britain by Neil Oliver. I love archaeology. For a large portion of my childhood and beyond, I wanted to be an archaeologist. I’m fascinated by glimpses of people in the past. One of the things I always feel sad [...]
No, I’m not talking about that kind of solicitor, I’m talking about the other kind of solicitor. The one who tells you what the law is. You may think you can shake us off, but the evidence shows we’ve been around for a lo-o-o-ong time, at least 3700 years. Researchers from the Hebrew University of [...]
By Legal Eagle
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Posted in History, Law, Middle east, Religion
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Also tagged Akkadian, archaeology, Bava Kamma, Bible, Code of Hammurabi, cuneiform, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Judaism, lawyers, lex talionis, Rabbis, restitution for wrongs, Talmud, Torah, tort, weregild
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