The Cambridge History of Rights: Volume 3, The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
Published on 19. January 2026
Book
Hardback
744 pages
978-1-108-83732-3 (ISBN)
Description
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, contemporary authors explored the myriad ways in which the concept of rights could be understood but almost always arrived at the same conclusion: It was vital that rights should never be conflated with power. Through twenty-six expertly written essays, Volume III of The Cambridge History of Rights focuses on the language of rights, exploring its use in contexts as diverse as the English family, trading relations, and Asian powers. This was a period in which rights came to the forefront of political discourse, making it crucial to the longer history of rights reflected in this series. By foregrounding the idea of rights in action, the volume considers the relationship between the ways in which rights were articulated - by individuals, institutions, and states - and how they were enacted in practice. In doing so, it uncovers the complexities inherent in the development of the language of rights during this formative period.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
Worked examples or Exercises
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 44 mm
Weight
1206 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-108-83732-3 (9781108837323)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Andrew Fitzmaurice | Rachel Hammersley
Cambridge History of Rights: Volume 3, The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
E-Book
01/2026
Cambridge University Press
€148.99
Available for download
Persons
Andrew Fitzmaurice is Professor of the History of Political Thought in the School of History, Queen Mary University of London. He is the author of Humanism and America: An Intellectual History of American Colonisation, 1500-1625 (2003); Sovereignty, Property, and Empire 1500-2000 (2014); and King Leopold's Ghostwriter (2021). Rachel Hammersley is Professor of Intellectual History in the School of History, Classics and Archaeology, Newcastle University. She is the author of French Revolutionaries and English Republicans: The Cordelier Club, 1790-1794 (2004); The English Republican Tradition and Eighteenth-Century France (2010); James Harrington: An Intellectual Biography (2019) and Republicanism: An Introduction (2020).
Content
Introduction Andrew Fitzmaurice and Rachel Hammersley; 1. Roman law: the science of right Daniel Lee; 2. Natural rights Mads Langballe Jensen; 3. Historic rights in sixteenth-century France Sophie Nicholls; 4. Common law rights Alan Cromartie; 5. The rights of states to self-preservation Simone Zurbuchen; 6. The Right of natural persons to self-preservation Rosemarie Wagner; 7. Divine right in early modern political thought Cesare Cuttica; 8. The right to punish Signey Gutnick Allen; 9. The rights of war and peace Peter Schroeder; 10. The right of navigation: claiming and challenging the free sea in theory and practice Arthur Westeijn; 11. The right to trade, 1500 -1700 Mark Somos; 12. The right to property Andrew Fitzmaurice; 13. Fair trials in law: imagining the rights of the accused Paul D. Halliday; 14. Freedom of religion Stefania Tutino; 15. The right of resistance Kajo Kubala; 16. The Right to Political participation and representation Markku Peltonen; 17. Rights and power in early modern feminism Hannah Dawson; 18. Gender and rights Anna Becker; 19. The rights of women Sharon Achinstein; 20. The rights of the insane Angus Gowland; 21. The rights of asylum Gaby Mahlberg; 22. The rights of peoples in Spain and its empire Tamar Herzog; 23. The rights of people in the English empire Ken Macmillan; 24. Rights in the seventeenth-century French empire Saliha Belmessous; 25. Rights, authority, and autonomy: the VOC in seventeenth century Southeast Asia Peter Borschberg.