The history of international law is often told in three parts. The first features early modern writings about the law of nations, with some attention to colonial encounters. The second traces the late-nineteenth century emergence of international law as handmaiden to the interstate order. And the third examines the twentieth-century rise of a new universalism surrounding doctrines such as human rights law. This story leaves out much of the history of legal interactions and vernacular constitutionalism both within and outside Europe, and it largely treats global empires as intellectual puzzles rather than complex legal formations. My lecture outlines a different approach to the study of global law. I discuss recurring patterns of legal interactions across the early modern world and analyze imperial law as a form of international law. The result is a new subject -- interpolity law -- and a different approach to the place of culture and conflict in world history.
March 7, 2017
Department of History and Cultures
Aula SPECOLA • 5.00-7.00