Description
Book SynopsisIt is commonly believed that international law originated in respectful relations among free and equal European states. But as Jennifer Pitts shows, international law was forged as much through Europeans’ domineering relations with non-European states and empires, leaving a legacy visible in the unequal structures of today’s international order.
Trade ReviewIlluminat[es] the ways in which international law was an artifact of empire, a system for organizing the world so as to perpetuate Western dominance. -- G. John Ikenberry * Foreign Affairs *
Boundaries of the International adds much nuance to existing literature, and challenges some of the past analytics through which the history of international legal thought has been written. A first-class book by a recognized leader in the field of history of international political and legal thought. -- Martti Koskenniemi, University of Helsinki
An outstanding history of international law and its entanglement with empire from one of the leading historians of political thought in the world today. -- Andrew Fitzmaurice, University of Sydney
In this masterful study, Jennifer Pitts examines universalist claims about the law of nations alongside rising European global power, uncovering a set of linked contradictions within eighteenth- and nineteenth-century political thought. A tour de force of interpretation and historical analysis, this subtle and persuasive book places the problem of empire at the very center of the history of international law—where it will now surely stay. -- Lauren Benton, Vanderbilt University
