POSTPONED: IAS Book Launch: Armed with Sword and Scales

In the mid-eighteenth century, author and magistrate Henry Fielding adjudicated cases of theft, assault, and public disorder from in his London home on Bow Street. By the middle of the nineteenth century, Fielding’s modest “police office” had expanded to become the most prolific court system in Britain and the cornerstone of criminal and civil justice in the metropolis. Armed with Sword and Scales examines the fascinating history of this institution through the lens of “courtroom culture,” the combination of formal statute and informal custom that guided everyday practice in the London Police Courts. It offers a new model for understanding the relationship between law, culture and society and illuminates how the local courtroom became such a crucial part of everyday life and so thoroughly entangled with popular representations of justice and morality.
 
Please find Dr Sascha Auerbach's here.