In this book Tamar Herzog explores the emergence of a specifically Spanish concept of community in both Spain and Spanish America in the eighteenth century. Challenging the assumption that communities were the natural result of common factors such as language or religion, or that they were artificially imagined, Herzog reexamines early modern categories of belonging. She argues that the distinction between those who were Spaniards and those who were foreigners came about as local communities distinguished between immigrants who were judged to be willing to take on the rights and duties of membership in that community and those who were not.

Defining Nations: Immigrants and Citizens in Early Modern Spain and Spanish America

History

Herzog, Tamar

Europe

Yale University Press

In this book Tamar Herzog explores the emergence of a specifically Spanish concept of community in both Spain and Spanish America in the eighteenth century. Challenging the assumption that communities were the natural result of common factors such as language or religion, or that they were artificially imagined, Herzog reexamines early modern categories of belonging. She argues that the distinction between those who were Spaniards and those who were foreigners came about as local communities distinguished between immigrants who were judged to be willing to take on the rights and duties of membership in that community and those who were not.

In colonies like Quito, order was typically maintained by local, private law enforcement, while weak and impoverished bureaucratic infrastructures receded into the background. Judicial administration was therefore open to the influences of social networks, rumor, and reputation. Upholding justice was a communal rather than a state-run enterprise, and the dominating rules were social and theological rather than legal. Herzog's combination of legal and historical analysis challenges the traditional paradigm in which the state was born under Spain's Catholic monarchs and only later exported to Spanish America. Her research reveals a more integrated and less oppositional relationship between the state and early modern society. Including both a specific case study and an innovative framework for the study of interactions between society, law, and the state, Upholding Justice will interest scholars of history, Latin American studies, anthropology, law, and political science. 
Tamar Herzog is Associate Professor of History at the University of Chicago.

Upholding Justice: Society, State, and the Penal System in Quito (1650-1750) (History, Languages, And Cultures Of The Spanish And Portuguese Worlds)

Americas

University of Michigan Press

A Short History of European Law brings to life 2,500 years of legal history, tying current norms to the circumstances of their conception. Tamar Herzog describes how successive legal systems built upon one another, from ancient times through the European Union. Roman law formed the backbone of each configuration, though the way it was used and reshaped varied dramatically from one century and place to the next. Only by considering Continental civil law and English common law together do we see how they drew from and enriched this shared tradition.
“A remarkable achievement, sure to become a go-to text for scholars and students alike… A must-read for anyone eager to understand the origins of core legal concepts and institution―like due process and rule of law―that profoundly shape the societies in which we live today.” ―Amalia D. Kessler, Stanford University
“A fundamental and timely contribution to the understanding of Europe as seen through its legal systems. Herzog masterfully shows the profound unity of legal thinking and practices across the Continent and in England.” ―Federico Varese, Oxford University
“Required reading for Americanists North and South, and indeed, for all of us inhabiting a postcolonial world deeply marked by the millennia of legal imaginings whose dynamic transformations it so lucidly charts.” ―David Nirenberg, University of Chicago

A Short History of European Law: The Last Two and a Half Millennia

Harvard University Press

Frontiers of Possession asks how territorial borders were established in Europe and the Americas during the early modern period and challenges the standard view that national boundaries are largely determined by military conflicts and treaties. Focusing on Spanish and Portuguese claims in the New and Old Worlds, Tamar Herzog reconstructs the different ways land rights were negotiated and enforced, sometimes violently, among people who remembered old possessions or envisioned new ones: farmers and nobles, clergymen and missionaries, settlers and indigenous peoples.
Questioning the habitual narrative that sees the Americas as a logical extension of the Old World, Herzog portrays Spain and Portugal on both sides of the Atlantic as one unified imperial space. She begins in the Americas, where Iberian conquerors had to decide who could settle the land, who could harvest fruit and cut timber, and who had river rights for travel and trade. The presence of indigenous peoples as enemies to vanquish or allies to befriend, along with the vastness of the land, complicated the picture, as did the promise of unlimited wealth. In Europe, meanwhile, the formation and re-formation of boundaries could last centuries, as ancient entitlements clashed with evolving economic conditions and changing political views and juridical doctrines regarding how land could be acquired and maintained.
Herzog demonstrates that the same fundamental questions had to be addressed in Europe and in the Americas. Territorial control was always subject to negotiation, as neighbors and outsiders, in their quotidian interactions, carved out and defended new frontiers of possession.

Frontiers of Possession: Spain and Portugal in Europe and the Americas

To many observers, European law seems like the endpoint of a mostly random walk through history. Certainly the trajectory of legal systems in the West over the past 2,500 years is far from self-evident. In A Short History of European Law, Tamar Herzog offers a new road map that reveals underlying patterns and unexpected connections. By identifying what European law was, where its iterations could be found, who was allowed to make and implement it, and what the results were, she ties legal norms to their historical circumstances, and allows readers to grasp their malleability and fragility.
Herzog describes how successive European legal systems built upon one another, from ancient times through the establishment and growth of the European Union. Roman law formed the backbone of each configuration, though the way it was understood, used, and reshaped varied dramatically from one century and place to the next. Only by considering Continental civil law and English common law together do we see how they drew from and enriched this shared tradition.
Expanding the definition of Europe to include its colonial domains, Herzog explains that British and Spanish empires in the New World were not only recipients of European legal traditions but also incubators of new ideas. Their experiences, as well as the constant tension between overreaching ideas and naive localism, explain how European law refashioned itself as the epitome of reason and as a system with potentially global applications.

In the early 16th century - having succeeded in establishing themselves in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas - Spain and Portugal became the first imperial powers on a worldwide scale. Between 1580 and 1640, when these two entities were united, they achieved an almost global hegemony, constituting the largest political force in Europe and abroad. Although they lost their political primacy in the 17th century, both monarchies survived and were able to enjoy a relative success until the early 19th century. This collection answers the question as to how and why their cultural and political legacies persist to date. Part I of the book focuses on the construction of the monarchy, examining the ways different territories were integrated into the imperial network, mainly by inquiring to what extent local political elites maintained their autonomy and to what a degree they shared power with the royal administration. Part II deals primarily with the circulation of ideas, models, and people, observing them as they move in space. It also examines how they coincide in the court, which was a veritable melting pot in which the various administrations that served the kings and the various territories belonging to the monarchy developed their own identities, fought for recognition in what they considered their proper place in the global hierarchy. Part III explains the forms of dependence and symbiosis that were established with other European powers, such as Genoa and the United Provinces. Attempting to reorient the politics of these States, political and financial co-dependence often led to bad economic choices. The book discards the portrayal of the Iberian monarchies as the accumulation of many bilateral relations arranged in a radial pattern, arguing that these political entities were polycentric - that is to say, they allowed for the existence of many different centers which interacted and thus participated in the making of empire. The resulting political structure was complex and unstable, albeit with a general adhesion to a discourse of loyalty to king and religion.

Polycentric Monarchies: How Did Early Modern Spain and Portugal Achieve and Maintain a Global Hegemony?

Cardim, Pedro

Ruiz Ibáñez, José Javier

Sabatini, Gaetano

Liverpool University Press

Una breve historia del derecho europeo: Los últimos 2.500 años

Alianza Editorial

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Books by Herzog, Tamar

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Herzog, Tamar. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Defining Nations: Immigrants and Citizens in Early Modern Spain and Spanish America

Defining Nations: Immigrants and Citizens in Early Modern Spain and Spanish America

Upholding Justice: Society, State, and the Penal System in Quito (1650-1750) (History, Languages, And Cultures Of The Spanish And Portuguese Worlds)

A Short History of European Law: The Last Two and a Half Millennia

Frontiers of Possession: Spain and Portugal in Europe and the Americas

A Short History of European Law: The Last Two and a Half Millennia

Polycentric Monarchies: How Did Early Modern Spain and Portugal Achieve and Maintain a Global Hegemony?

Una breve historia del derecho europeo: Los últimos 2.500 años