International law burst on the scene as a new field in the late nineteenth century. Where did it come from? Rage for Order finds the origins of international law in empires—especially in the British Empire’s sprawling efforts to refashion the imperial constitution and use it to order the world in the early part of that century.

“Rage for Order is a book of exceptional range and insight. Its successes are numerous. At a time when questions of law and legalism are attracting more and more attention from historians of 19th-century Britain and its empire, but still tend to be considered within very specific contexts, its sweep and ambition are particularly welcome…Rage for Order is a book that deserves to have major implications both for international legal history, and for the history of modern imperialism.”
—Alex Middleton, Reviews in History

“Rage for Order offers a fresh account of nineteenth-century global order that takes us beyond worn liberal and post-colonial narratives into a new and more adventurous terrain.”
—Jens Bartelson, Australian Historical Studies

"[Benton and Ford] present a substantially researched history of British administrative control in the nation’s empire." - Choice

"Rage for Order is a book of exceptional range and insight. Its successes are numerous. At a time when questions of law and legalism are attracting more and more attention from historians of 19th-century Britain and its empire, but still tend to be considered within very specific contexts, its sweep and ambition are particularly welcome…Rage for Order is a book that deserves to have major implications both for international legal history, and for the history of modern imperialism. It succeeds in positioning law at the very center of British imperial government and imperial political thinking in a way that future work will, or at least should, find impossible to ignore." - Reviews in History

"Benton and Ford present a picture of law that was multi-centered and polyphonic but that nonetheless undergirded the expansion of British global power…This is a book which will receive a deservedly enthusiastic reception among scholars of law and empire, and which may well cause a stir with its more subversive trespasses into the field of international relations." - British Studies

"Truly remarkable. Rage for Order is a stunning example of what can be achieved through a combination of erudition, conceptual innovation, and diligent work in the archives. This book describes in detail how the transformation of the global order that took place in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars was driven by legal reform in the British Empire…Rage for Order offers a fresh account of nineteenth-century global order that takes us beyond worn liberal and post- colonial narratives into a new and more adventurous terrain, and adds significant detail and nuance to those intellectual histories that have already done much to complicate received views." - Australian Historical Studies