Law and Colonial Cultures by Lauren Benton
Advances an interesting perspective in world history, arguing that institutions and culture - and not just the global economy - serve as important elements of international order. Focusing on colonial legal politics and the interrelation of local and indigenous cultural contests and institutional change, the book uses case studies to trace a shift in plural legal orders - from the multicentric law of early empires to the state-centered law of the colonial and postcolonial world. In the early modern world, the special legal status of cultural and religious others itself became an element of continuity across culturally diverse empires. In the nineteenth century, the state's assertion of a singular legal authority responded to repetitive legal conflicts - not simply to the imposition of Western models of governance. Indigenous subjects across time and in all settings were active in making, changing, and interpreting the law - and, by extension, in shaping the international order.
'… this book can be warmly recommended for its topicality, as well as its provocative thesis and rich detail' The Round Table
Lauren Benton is an Associate Professor of Law and a Professor of History at New York University. Law and Colonial Cultures: Legal Regimes in Global History, 1400-1900, and A Quest for Sovereignty: Law and Geography in European Empires, 1400-1900 are two of her books.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780521009263 |
| ISBN 10 | 052100926X |
| Title | Law and Colonial Cultures |
| Author | Lauren Benton |
| Series | Studies In Comparative World History |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| Year published | 2001-12-03 |
| Number of pages | 300 |
| Prizes | Winner of James Willard Hurst Prize of the Law and Society Association 2003, Winner of World History Association Prize 2003 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |