Lauren Benton (historian)

Lauren A. Benton
Born 1956
Baltimore
Nationality American
Academic background
Alma mater Harvard University,
Johns Hopkins University
Academic work
Discipline History
Institutions Vanderbilt University

Lauren Benton (born 1956) is an American historian known for her works on the history of empires, colonial and imperial law, and the history of international law. She is dean of the College of Arts and Science at Vanderbilt University,[1] where she holds the Nelson O. Tyrone, Jr. Chair in History and is a professor of history.[2][3]

Biography

Lauren Benton was born in 1956 in Baltimore, Maryland, and attended high school at the Park School of Baltimore in Brooklandville, Maryland. She graduated from Harvard University in 1978, with a concentration in economics. Benton received her Ph.D. in Anthropology and History from Johns Hopkins University in 1987.[4]

Benton’s early scholarship focused on culture and economic development. Her book Invisible Factories: The Informal Economy and Industrial Development in Spain examined industrial restructuring and the “informal sector,” or underground economy, in Spain during the transition to democracy of the 1970s and early 1980s.[5] Benton also co-edited a volume with Alejandro Portes and Manuel Castells on the informal sector in comparative economic development.[6]

Benton radically changed the focus of her research with Law and Colonial Cultures: Legal Regimes in World History, 1400-1900, which mapped a novel perspective centered on the study of jurisdictional conflicts in colonial societies. Introducing the term “jurisdictional politics,” Benton analyzed the impact of jurisdictional tensions on global legal regimes, colonial state formation, and the rise of the modern international order.[7] In 2003, Law and Colonial Cultures was awarded the World History Association Book Award[8] and the James Willard Hurst Book Prize.[9]

Benton continues to write on law and global change and has authored other books and several dozen articles analyzing such topics as imperial sovereignty, maritime law and piracy, the legal history of abolition, and the history of international law. Her book A Search for Sovereignty: Law and Geography in European Empires, 1400-1900 showed that empires did not seek to control vast overseas territories but instead used various legal practices to claim and rule a patchwork of enclaves and corridors.

A Search for Sovereignty introduced the term “legal posturing” to describe attempts by imperial agents, including pirates, to show that they were serving the interests of sovereign sponsors. The book also traced the influence of legal conflicts in European empires on definitions of sovereignty and other elements of early international law.[10]

Published works

Books
Selected Articles

Awards

2003 World History Association Book Award
2003 James Willard Hurst Prize

References

  1. ↑ http://as.vanderbilt.edu/overview/deansoffice/benton/
  2. ↑ http://as.vanderbilt.edu/history/bio/lauren-benton
  3. ↑ "Lauren Benton, dean's page, College of Arts and Science, Vanderbilt University". as.vanderbilt.edu/overview/deansoffice/benton.
  4. ↑ "Benton, Lauren - Silver Dialogues - New York University". nyu.edu.
  5. ↑ Benton, Lauren (1990). Invisible Factories: The Informal Economy and Industrial Development in Spain. State Univ of New York Pr. ISBN 079140224X.
  6. ↑ Benton, Lauren; et al. (1989). The Informal Economy: Studies in Advanced and Less Developed Countries. The Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0801837359.
  7. ↑ Benton, Lauren (2001). Law and Colonial Cultures: Legal Regimes in World History, 1400-1900. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521804140.
  8. ↑ Benton, Lauren. "Bentley Book Prize". World History Association.
  9. ↑ Benton, Lauren. "Hurst Book Prize". Law and Society.
  10. ↑ Benton, Lauren (2009). A Search for Sovereignty: Law and Geography in European Empires, 1400-1900. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521881056.

External links

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