Unsound Empire

“Unsound Empire has something to tell us not only about the history of the British Empire, but also about our contemporary criminal justice dilemmas.”—Martin J. Wiener, Victorian Studies

“Riveting. . . . Evans masterfully traces how as the 19th century drew to a close, the law and the (mental and social) sciences spoke more and more at cross purposes as British justice teetered between two perilous pitfalls: inadvertently punishing the innocent and/or letting the guilty off the hook.”—Uponita Mukherjee, Kritik

Shortlisted for the Stansky Book Prize, sponsored by the North American Conference on British Studies (NACBS)

Shortlisted for the Wallace K. Ferguson Prize, sponsored by the Canadian Historical Association (CHA)

“Unsound Empire reconnoitres with late-Victorian jurists and medical men struggling with prisoners too dangerous to release and too mad to hang. Catherine Evans’s micro-histories are strewn with eccentric characters and thick with tales that sparkle with stunning prose.”—Constance Backhouse, University of Ottawa

“This original, bold and beautifully crafted book brings legal history, the history of medicine and imperial history into dialogue. A must-read for anyone interested in a critical history of the British Empire.”—Renaud Morieux, author of The Society of Prisoners: Anglo-French Wars and Incarceration in the Eighteenth Century