Book Review: Tainted Witness: Why We Doubt What Women Say About Their Lives
| Date | 01 June 2018 |
| Published date | 01 June 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0964663918760884 |
| Author | Tanya Serisier |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
speculations of Vattel and his confreres’ (p. 21), the authors draw slightly too sharp a
distinction between ‘theory’ as articulated by international lawyers and ‘practice’ as
emerged in the course of disputes in the colonies. Since the boundaries between the
imperial and the international spheres were, as the authors argue, blurred, actors often
straddled both worlds. Some colonial players wrote their own international law texts (for
instance, in relation to the latter half of the 19th century, see Maine (1888)) or used texts
written by more established international lawyers to bolster their own arguments. It is
unclear, therefore, whether conversations of the ‘invisible college’ of international law-
yers (Schachter, 1977) on the one hand, and colonial officials and anti-imperialists on the
other hand were parallel ones that never intersected with each other. Nevertheless, the
authors make a compelling argument, supplemented by rich archival material. This book
is essential reading for those interested in the history of international law, and more
specifically, on the relationship between international law and empire.
PRIYASHA SAKSENA
Harvard University, USA
References
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Benton L (2010) A Search for Sovereignty: Law and Geography in European Empires, 1400–1900.
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Maine H (1888) International Law. London: John Murray.
Pahuja S (2011) Decolonizing International Law: Development, Economic Growth and the Pol-
itics of Universality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Schachter O (1977) The invisible college of international lawyers. Northwestern University Law
Review 72(2): 217–226.
Stern PJ (2012) Company, state, and empire: Governance and regulatory frameworks in Asia. In:
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Travers R (2007) Ideology and Empire in Eighteenth-Century India: The British in Bengal. Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press.
LEIGH GILMORE, Tainted Witness: Why We Doubt What Women Say About Their Lives.
New York: Columbia University Press, 2016, pp. 224, ISBN 9780231177146, £24.95 (Hbk).
Tainted Witness is an analysis of the neoliberal or post-Reagan United States, and the
development of ‘a new era of doubting women in public’ (p. 10). The book aims to
examine ‘what happens as and after women’s testimony is discredited’ (p. 2). It thus
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