Book Reviews : JOHN BREWER AND SUSAN STAVES (EDS), Early Modern Conceptions of Property. London: Routledge, 1995, 599 pp
| Author | Raymond Cocks |
| Published date | 01 June 1997 |
| DOI | 10.1177/096466399700600214 |
| Date | 01 June 1997 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
307
can
be
no
response,
no
figuration
of
persons
in
places,
times
and
histories,
then
can
there
really
be
resistance,
transgression
or
liberation?
Can
there
really
be
a
postmodern
ethics
that
is
worth
unfolding?
If
the
desire
to
hear
the
voices
of
the
excluded
cannot
be
fulfilled,
then
hasn’t
the
repressive
apparatus
really
won?
The
death
of
the
subject
becomes
the
death
of
the
city,
the
voice
that
cannot
speak
its
name.
REFERENCE
Coombe,
R.
(1995)
’Finding
and
Losing
Oneself
in
the
Topoi:
Placing
and
Displacing
the
Postmodern
Subject
in
Law’,
Law
&
Society
Review
29:
600.
AUSTIN
SARAT
Departments
of Law,
Jurisprudence
&
Social
Thought
and
Political
Science
Amherst
College,
MA,
USA
JOHN
BREWER
AND
SUSAN
STAVES
(EDS),
Early
Modern
Conceptions
of
Property.
London:
Routledge,
1995,
599
pp.
For
once,
the
’blurb’
is
both
useful
and
controversial.
It
states,
correctly,
that
this
book
draws
together
academics
’from
a
variety
of
disciplines,
including
law,
economics,
politics,
art
history,
social
history,
and
literature,
in
order
to
consider
fundamental
issues
of
property
in
the
early
modern
period’.
More
controversially,
but
still
with
the
merit
of
clarity,
it
argues
that
in
’presenting
diverse
original
historical
and
literary
case
studies
in
a
sophisticated
theoretical
framework,
it
offers
a
challenge
to
conventional
interpretations’.
The
substance
of
this
review
will
suggest
that
the
book’s Introduc-
tion
and
26
articles
give
an
admirable
variety
of
disciplinary
perspectives
and
that
these
certainly
challenge
conventional
interpretations.
At
the
same
time
it
will
become
obvious
that,
to
this
reader
at
least,
there
is
no
single
’sophisticated
theoretical
frame-
work’
to
which
all
the
pieces
may
be
related
and
which
could
lay
claim
to
general
credibility.
The
very
diversity
of
topic
and
approach
may
even
suggest
that
such
a
framework
will
never
be
found.
The
first
impression
for
the reader
is
one
of
diversity.
The
helpful
Index
reveals
the
range
of
the
contributions
in
about
2000
references.
These
include
topics
as
varied
as
’toleration
and
religion’,
’sugar
and
slavery’,
’customary
law
and
women’,
’law
and
liberty’.
The
articles
include
contributions
from
Ashcraft
on
’Lockean
ideas,
poverty,
and
the
development
of
liberal
political
theory’;
Lieberman
on
’Property,
commerce,
and
the
common
law:
attitudes
to
legal
change
in
the
eighteenth
century’;
Blum
on
’Of
women
and
the
land:
legitimizing
husbandry’;
Coleman
on
’Property,
politics,
and
personality
in
Rousseau’;
Peters
on
’The
bank,
the
press
and
the
&dquo;return
of
nature&dquo;:
an
analysis
of
currency,
credit,
and
literary
property
in
the
1690s’;
Ritvo
on
’Possessing
mother
nature:
genetic
capital
in
eighteenth-century
Britain’;
and
Beckles
on
’The
concept
of
&dquo;white
slavery&dquo;
in
the
English
Caribbean
during
the
early
seven-
teenth
century’.
With
a
view
to
revealing
themes,
the
various
contributions
are
placed
in
groups
under
titles
such
as:
Property
and
the
Family;
Property
and
the
Construc-
tion
of
a
Self;
and
the
Property
of
Empire.
Faced
with
such
diversity,
the
reader
will
find
the
Introduction
of
particular
importance.
Here
Brewer
and
Staves
point
out
that
early
modern
property
appears
in
’variegated,
intangible,
and
peculiar
forms’
(p.
2).
When
these
forms
are
considered
they
have
a
disruptive
force
upon
conventional
notions
of
property.
After
all,
’the
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