Books published by University of Virginia Press

Explores the development of corporate law from the 1780s, a time when the special charter was the only form of incorporation, to the 1960s, a time when corporations were established exclusively through general incorporation statutes. More than a chronicle, this emphasises how legal institutions actively shaped the central traits of American capitalism.

Offers a comprehensive collection of sophisticated but accessible essays that productively investigate the relationship between European theory and ecocritique. Bringing together approaches and orientations based on the work of European philosophers and cultural theorists, this volume is designed to open new pathways for ecocritical theory and practice in the twenty-first century.

In Liberal Epic, Edward Adams examines the liberal imagination's centuries-long dependence on contradictory, and mutually constitutive, attitudes toward violent domination. Adams centers his ambitious analysis on a series of major epic poems, histories, and historical novels, including Dryden's Aeneid, Pope's Iliad, Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Byron's Don Juan, Scott's Life of Napoleon, Napier's History of the War in the Peninsula, Macaulay's History of England, Hardy's Dynasts, and Churchill's military histories-works that rank among the most important publishing events of the past three centuries yet that have seldom received critical attention relative to their importance. In recovering these neglected works and gathering them together as part of a self-conscious literary tradition here defined as liberal epic, Adams provides an archaeology that sheds light on contemporary issues such as the relation of liberalism to war, the tactics for sanitizing heroism, and the appeal of violence to supposedly humane readers. Victorian Literature and Culture Series

Thousands of British American mainland colonists rejected the War for American Independence. Shunning rebel violence as unnecessary, unlawful, and unnatural, they emphasized the natural ties of blood, kinship, language, and religion that united the colonies to Britain. They hoped that British military strength would crush the minority rebellion and free the colonies to renegotiate their return to the empire.Of course the loyalists were too American to be of one mind. This is a story of how a cross-section of colonists flocked to the British headquarters of New York City to support their ideal of reunion. Despised by the rebels as enemies or as British appendages, New York's refugees hoped to partner with the British to restore peaceful government in the colonies. The British confounded their expectations by instituting martial law in the city and marginalizing loyalist leaders. Still, the loyal Americans did not surrender their vision but creatively adapted their rhetoric and accommodated military governance to protect their long-standing bond with the mother country. They never imagined that allegiance to Britain would mean a permanent exile from their homes.

Beginning with Madison's return to Washington from Montpelier, this fourth volume in the ""Secretary of State"" series ends with the acquisition of Louisiana by the United States. The letters show Madison's response to the ""Louisiana Crisis"" as it happened and annotation aids understanding of events.

During the period of this third volume of the ""Secretary of State"" series, Madison was concerned with ongoing problems in foreign policy, particularly US relations with the European powers. Diplomatic letters describe his efforts to defend American commercial rights.

In this text, Schaffer analyzes writers such as Lucas Malet, Ouida, Alice Meynell, Rosamund Marriott Watson and Una Ashworth Taylor. These women used aestheticism to forge a compromise between the two models of female identity available to them - the New Woman and the Angel in the House.

Although the British romantic poets have been the subjects of previous ecocritical examinations, this title compares English and German literary models of romanticism. Rigby treats not only canonical British romantics but an array of major figures in Continental literature, philosophy, and natural history.

Montgomery Jason, an idealistic African American college student, enlists to fight for freedom and democracy. When he falls in love with a French woman, he learns that freedom and democracy do not apply to black soldiers.

A collection of poems about London which is suitable for: the student abroad for a semester, the armchair traveler, or the critical reader of poetry. It conveys a sense that London is a place of exile and transplantation, a protean site of history, projection, culture, and personal drama.