Legal History Turns: Topics and Optics

This article locates 'legal history turns' in the wider intellectual landscape of the proliferation of turns in the 20th and 21st centuries, and examines the tension between turns' diverse topics and optics. These 'optics' represent diverse historiographical and interdisciplinary perceptions that illuminate topics in law, legal scholarship and legal history. The article first 'defines' legal history turns, and then moves to consider how the increasing production of turns generates tensions not only between topics and optics, but between brighter views and darker visions of 'turn talk'. The potential of exploring legal history turns is endorsed by identifying how optics are generated from the topics of the 'Legal History Turns' Special Issue. Full text also available via Informit