Legal Pluralism and Empires, 1500-1850
Richard J. Ross and Lauren Benton
Abstract
This book advances our understanding of law and empire in the early modern world. It exposes new dimensions of legal pluralism in the British, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Ottoman empires. In-depth analyses probe such topics as the shifting legal privileges of corporations, the intertwining of religious and legal thought, and the effects of clashing legal authorities on sovereignty and subjecthood. Case studies show how a variety of individuals engage with the law and shape the contours of imperial rule. The book reaches from Peru to New Zealand to Europe to capture the varieties and conti ... More
This book advances our understanding of law and empire in the early modern world. It exposes new dimensions of legal pluralism in the British, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Ottoman empires. In-depth analyses probe such topics as the shifting legal privileges of corporations, the intertwining of religious and legal thought, and the effects of clashing legal authorities on sovereignty and subjecthood. Case studies show how a variety of individuals engage with the law and shape the contours of imperial rule. The book reaches from Peru to New Zealand to Europe to capture the varieties and continuities of legal pluralism and to probe the analytic power of the concept of legal pluralism in the comparative study of empires. For legal scholars, social scientists, and historians, the book maps new approaches to the study of empires and the global history of law.
Keywords:
empires,
early modern world,
legal pluralism,
imperial rule,
corporations,
sovereignty,
subjecthood,
law
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2013 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780814771167 |
| Published to NYU Press Scholarship Online: March 2016 |
DOI:10.18574/nyu/9780814771167.001.0001 |
