Brett Changes of State

Nature and the Limits of the City in Early Modern Natural Law
Course Book
ISBN: 978-1-4008-3862-2
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 264 Seiten

This is a book about the theory of the city or commonwealth, what would come to be called the state, in early modern natural law discourse. Annabel Brett takes a fresh approach by looking at this political entity from the perspective of its boundaries and those who crossed them. She begins with a classic debate from the Spanish sixteenth century over the political treatment of mendicants, showing how cosmopolitan ideals of porous boundaries could simultaneously justify the freedoms of itinerant beggars and the activities of European colonists in the Indies. She goes on to examine the boundaries of the state in multiple senses, including the fundamental barrier between human beings and animals and the limits of the state in the face of the natural lives of its subjects, as well as territorial frontiers. Drawing on a wide range of authors, Brett reveals how early modern political space was constructed from a complex dynamic of inclusion and exclusion. Throughout, she shows that early modern debates about political boundaries displayed unheralded creativity and virtuosity but were nevertheless vulnerable to innumerable paradoxes, contradictions, and loose ends.

Changes of State is a major work of intellectual history that resonates with modern debates about globalization and the transformation of the nation-state.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Brett, Annabel S.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Weltgeschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Internationale Beziehungen
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Sozialphilosophie, Politische Philosophie
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Geschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Theorie, Politische Philosophie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

A Note on the Text ix

Acknowledgements xi

INTRODUCTION: On the threshold of the state 1

CHAPTER ONE: Travelling the borderline 11

CHAPTER TWO: Constructing human agency 37

CHAPTER THREE: Natural law 62

CHAPTER FOUR: Natural liberty 90

CHAPTER FIVE: Kingdoms founded 115

CHAPTER SIX: The lives of subjects 142

CHAPTER SEVEN: Locality 169

CHAPTER EIGHT: Re-placing the state 195

Bibliography of works cited 225

Index 237

Über Autor(innen)

Annabel S. Brett is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. She is the author of Liberty, Right, and Nature and a new translation of Marsilius of Padua's Defender of the Peace.