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Author Parker, D. S. (David Stuart), 1960- author.

Title The pen, the sword, and the law : dueling and democracy in Uruguay / David S. Parker
Published Montreal ; Kingston ; London ; Chicago : McGill-Queen's University Press, 2022

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Description 1 online resource
Series McGill-Queen's Iberian and Latin American cultures series ; 3
McGill-Queen's Iberian and Latin American cultures series ; 3.
Contents The Laws of Honor -- Dueling as Politics and the Politics of Dueling -- Impunity to Legality: Dueling and the Law, 1860s-1930s -- Resurgence and Recriminalization, 1950s-1992
Summary "The duel, and the codes of honour that governed duelling, functioned for decades in many European and Latin American countries as a shadow legal system, regulating in practice what legislators felt free to say and what journalists felt free to write. Yet the duel was also an act of potentially deadly violence and a challenge to the authority of black-letter law. When duelling became widespread in early twentieth-century Uruguay, legislators facing this dilemma chose the unique and radical path of legalization. The Pen, the Sword, and the Law explores how the only country in the world to decriminalize duelling managed the tension between these informal but widely accepted "gentlemanly laws" and its own criminal code. The duel, which remained legal until 1992, was meant to ensure civility in politics and decorum in the press, but it often failed to achieve either. Drawing on rich and detailed newspaper reports of duels and challenges, parliamentary debates, legal records, private papers, and interviews, David Parker examines the role of pistols and sabres in shaping the everyday workings of a raucous public sphere. Demonstrating that the duel was no simple throwback to archaic conceptions of masculine honour and chivalry, The Pen, the Sword, and the Law illustrates how duelling went hand in hand with democracy and freedom of the press in one of South America's most progressive nations."-- Provided by publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Description based upon online resource; title from PDF title page (viewed May 13, 2022)
Subject Dueling -- Uruguay -- History
Honor -- Uruguay -- History
Democracy -- Uruguay -- History
HISTORY / Latin America / South America
Democracy
Dueling
Honor
Uruguay
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 0228012341
9780228012351
022801235X
9780228012344