This is the first book that directly addresses the cultural history of the legal profession. An international team of scholars canvasses wide-ranging issues concerning the culture of the legal profession and the wider cultural significance of lawyers,including consideration of the relation to cultural processes of state formation and colonisation. The essays describe and analyse significant aspects of the cultural history of the legal profession in England, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway and Finland. The book seeks to understand the complex ways in which lawyers were imaginatively and institutionally constructed, and their larger cultural significance. It illustrates both the diversity and the potential of a cultural approach to lawyers in history.

Contents: Introduction and Overview; Part I The Formation of Lawyers; Part II Lawyers and the Liberal State; Part III Work and Representations; Part IV Lawyers and Colonialism

Contributors: David Applebaum, Professor of History, Rowan University, Glassboro, NJ; Harold Dick, Barrister and Solicitor, City of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada; Ann Fidler, Assistant Professor and Dean, History Department, Honors Tutorial College, Ohio University; Jean-Louis Halperin, University of Bourgogne, CNRS; Esa Konttinen.Senior Lecturer of Sociology, University of Jyraskyla, Finland; David Lemmings, Associate Professor of History, University of Newcastle, Australia; Anne McGillivray, Professor of Law, University of Manitoba, Canada; Rob McQueen, Professor of Law, Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia; Kjell A Modeer, Lund University, Sweden; W. Wesley Pue, Nemetz Chair in Legal History, Faculty of Law, University of British Columbia; John Savage, Assistant Professor, History Department, Lehigh University; Hannes Siegrist, Professor of Modern European History, University of Leipzig; David Sugarman, Professor of Law, Law School, Lancaster University.