Law, Debt, and Merchant Power: The Civil Courts of Eighteenth-Century Halifax

‘At the higher methodological level, the work both fascinates and provokes… Muir’s book is an interesting, original, and important work, part of the new wave of regional scholarship that integrates greater Nova Scotia into the history of the eighteenth-century British Atlantic.’

Barry Cahill, Acadiensis February 2017

‘James Muir presents an articulate, nuanced approach to the development of civil procedure in Canada… He has collected an impressive amount of historical data in order to reconstruct patterns of litigation in eighteenth-century Halifax.’

Ashton Butler, Saskatchewan Law Review vol 80:2017

"This is the 103^rd book published by the Osgoode Society for Legal History since 1981, part of a sustained effort to understand the law, the courts, and practitioners over the whole of Canadian history from many perspectives."

Douglas McCalla, University of Guelph, Canadian Business History Association Newlsetter, July 2018

"This book is admirably accurate about the ways the law actually worked in practice, and refreshingly careful to avoid anachronism and over-reach. Muir demonstrates an impressive knowledge of eighteenth-century judicial procedures, and he offers a persuasive analysis of colonial legal culture."

Jerry Bannister, Department of History, Dalhousie University

"Law, Debt, and Merchant Power is a path breaking analysis of how civil law was used in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Muir’s meticulous analysis of civil suits illustrates how important the law was and how bourgeois merchants shaped the administration of law to their needs."

Elizabeth Mancke, Department of History, University of New Brunswick