A Search for Sovereignty: Law and Geography in European Empires, 1400-1900 Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy A Search for Sovereignty: Law and Geography in European Empires, 1400-1900? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on A Search for Sovereignty: Law and Geography in European Empires, 1400-1900. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

A Search for Sovereignty: Law and Geography in European Empires, 1400-1900 ReviewThis book elevates a technical legal topic to the level of the finest modern historical writing. It does not have everything, but it has everything it needs. All the erogenous zones of a well-informed reader with a smattering of Theory will be stimulated by a book that concerns itself with liminal issues, with exceptions to general rules and systems, with quasi-sovereignty, with the establishment on and by means of the oceans of the sovereignty of the land, with the supposed relegation of non-European civilizations to the status of imperfect polities. The book is underscored with paradoxes, which it treats both sensibly and seriously. There is none of the hackneyed playfulness that issues of this kind can inspire in lesser writers.
The application of legal theories to tracts of territory far from the metropoles in Europe is outlined and analyzed with commendable clarity. The recruitment of law to aid the imposition of colonial will on distant territory is demonstrated. The Eurocentrism of the enterprise, so clear to us today, is pointed up in the treatment of the topic in the early modern period and later.
The discussion of particular issues is especially valuable, such as the legal consequences of the formation of enclaves, which remain of considerable moment today in some parts of the world. Outside pure legal textbooks of the most technical kind, there is little available of this quality on this subject.
In short, this is a work of real analysis, establishing a new way of seeing the history of the period when Europe burst out onto the world stage and, with the jackboot and the lawyer's opinion operating in harmony, divided the world legally into the domains of different European states. The raggedness of the enterprise of empire, the contingency of its creation: these are among the other features of the past that this book holds up for our attention. The book makes the reader wonder how the leaders of modern ex-colonial powers so confidently expect ex-colonies to demonstrate reflex respect for an international law system grounded in the theories elaborated to support the European colonial land grab.
And a writer who beings a chapter with the sentence 'It is hard to avoid beginning with Conrad' very definitely begins well. This reviewer can assure readers that the book continues in the same excellent vein.A Search for Sovereignty: Law and Geography in European Empires, 1400-1900 Overview

Want to learn more information about A Search for Sovereignty: Law and Geography in European Empires, 1400-1900?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism ReviewThis book is much more than a history of the US in Latin America. It's an explanation of the importance of Ronald Reagan's Central American policy in the formation of the conservative movement and how that policy led to war in Iraq. All of the stuff that we are reading about today - abuses of power such as the NSA wiretapping controversy, the surveillance of antiwar protesters, the way the Bushies have used public relations companies and so-called "grassroots" conservative groups like the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the justification of torture in the name of supporting freedom, the lying and misinformation - have their beginnings in Reagan's Central American policy. The stuff in chapter four on how Otto Reich and the rest of the neocons learned out to manipulate the press is fascinating and scary. And Grandin's discussion of how the Christian evangelicals joined forces with the neocons to fight liberation theology is the best discussion I've so far read on the origins of Bush's foreign policy. It's much more interesting than Kevin Phillip's book on the theocons or any of the multiple books on the neocons. This is the smartest historical examination of neoconservative foreign policy adventurism that I have read.Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism Overview

Want to learn more information about Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...