Benjamin Straumann's Books

Crisis and Constitutionalism

Roman Political Thought from the Fall of the Republic to the Age of Revolution

By: Benjamin Straumann

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Crisis and Constitutionalism

Roman Political Thought from the Fall of the Republic to the Age of Revolution

By: Benjamin Straumann

The crisis and fall of the Roman Republic spawned a tradition of political thought that sought to evade the Republic's fate--despotism. Thinkers from Cicero to Bodin, Montesquieu, and the American Founders saw constitutionalism, not virtue, as the remedy. This study traces Roman constitutional thought from antiquity to the Revolutionary Era.

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433

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

019995092X

ISBN 13

9780199950928

Roman Law in the State of Nature

The Classical Foundations of Hugo Grotius' Natural Law

By: Benjamin Straumann

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Roman Law in the State of Nature

The Classical Foundations of Hugo Grotius' Natural Law

By: Benjamin Straumann

Roman Law in the State of Nature offers a new interpretation of the foundations of Hugo Grotius' natural law theory. Surveying the significance of texts from classical antiquity, Benjamin Straumann argues that certain classical texts, namely Roman law and a specifically Ciceronian brand of Stoicism, were particularly influential for Grotius in the construction of his theory of natural law. The book asserts that Grotius, a humanist steeped in Roman law, had many reasons to employ Roman tradition and explains how Cicero's ethics and Roman law - secular and offering a doctrine of the freedom of the high seas - were ideally suited to provide the rules for Grotius' state of nature. This fascinating new study offers historians, classicists and political theorists a fresh account of the historical background of the development of natural rights, natural law and of international legal norms as they emerged in seventeenth-century early modern Europe.

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287

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1316241076

ISBN 13

9781316241073

Crisis and Constitutionalism

Roman Political Thought from the Fall of the Republic to the Age of Revolution

By: Benjamin Straumann

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Crisis and Constitutionalism

Roman Political Thought from the Fall of the Republic to the Age of Revolution

By: Benjamin Straumann

Crisis and Constitutionalism argues that the late Roman Republic saw, for the first time in the history of political thought, the development of a normative concept of constitution--the concept of a set of constitutional norms designed to guarantee and achieve certain interests of the individual. Benjamin Straumann first explores how a Roman concept of constitution emerged out of the crisis and fall of the Roman Republic. The increasing use of emergency measures and extraordinary powers in the late Republic provoked Cicero and some of his contemporaries to turn a hitherto implicit, inchoate constitutionalism into explicit constitutional argument and theory. The crisis of the Republic thus brought about a powerful constitutionalism and convinced Cicero to articulate the norms and rights that would provide its substance; this typically Roman constitutional theory is described in the second part of the study. Straumann then discusses the reception of Roman constitutional thought up to the late eighteenth century and the American Founding, which gave rise to a new, constitutional republicanism. This tradition was characterized by a keen interest in the Roman Republic's decline and fall, and an insistence on the limits of virtue. The crisis of the Republic was interpreted as a constitutional crisis, and the only remedy to escape the Republic's fate--military despotism--was thought to lie, not in republican virtue, but in Roman constitutionalism. By tracing Roman constitutional thought from antiquity to the modern era, this unique study makes a substantial contribution to our understanding of Roman political thought and its reception.

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433

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0199950938

ISBN 13

9780199950935

Roman Law in the State of Nature

The Classical Foundations of Hugo Grotius' Natural Law

By: Benjamin Straumann

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Roman Law in the State of Nature

The Classical Foundations of Hugo Grotius' Natural Law

By: Benjamin Straumann

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287

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Cambridge University Press

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ISBN 10

1316241076

ISBN 13

9781316241073

The Wars of the Romans

A Critical Edition and Translation of De Armis Romanis

By: Alberico Gentili

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The Wars of the Romans

A Critical Edition and Translation of De Armis Romanis

By: Alberico Gentili

Was the Roman Empire just? Did Rome acquire her territories through just wars, and did Rome's rule exert a civilizing effect, ultimately beneficial for its subjects? Or was Roman imperialism a massive injustice - the bellicose conquest and absorption of countless peoples and large swaths of territory under false pretences, driven by greed and a lust for domination and glory? In The Wars of the Romans (1599), the important Italian jurist and Regius Professor of Civil Law at Oxford University Alberico Gentili (1552-1608) argues both sides of the debate. In the first book he lays out the case against the justice of the Roman Empire, and in the second book the case for. Gentili's polemic and highly engaging work helped pioneer the use of Roman law and just war theory in what became a leading international law approach to the enduring questions of the justice of empire. Writing in the wake of the first wave of European colonial expansion in the Americas, and relying on models of the controversy about Roman imperialism from Cicero to Lactantius and Augustine, Gentili developed the arguments which were to become pivotal in normative debates concerning imperialism. In this work Gentili, a consummate Roman law scholar, frames the moral and practical issues in a combination of Roman legal terminology and the language of natural law, a combination which was to prove highly influential in the literature from Grotius onward on natural law, the law of nations and what eventually became international law.

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424

Publisher

OUP Oxford

Published Date

ISBN 10

0191616753

ISBN 13

9780191616754

Towards the Critique of Violence

Walter Benjamin and Giorgio Agamben

By: Walter Benjamin,Giorgio Agamben

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Towards the Critique of Violence

Walter Benjamin and Giorgio Agamben

By: Walter Benjamin,Giorgio Agamben

In the past two and a half decades, Walter Benjamin's early essay 'Towards the Critique of Violence' (1921) has taken a central place in politico-philosophic debates. The complexity and perhaps even the occasional obscurity of Benjamin's text have undoubtedly contributed to the diversity, conflict, and richness of contemporary readings. Interest has heightened following the attention that philosophers such as Jacques Derrida and Giorgio Agamben have devoted to it. Agamben's own interest started early in his career with his 1970 essay, 'On the Limits of Violence', and Benjamin's essay continues.

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Page Count

251

Published Date

ISBN 10

1474252176

ISBN 13

9781474252171

Book's by Benjamin Straumann

Crisis and Constitutionalism

Crisis and Constitutionalism

Roman Law in the State of Nature

Roman Law in the State of Nature

Crisis and Constitutionalism

Crisis and Constitutionalism

Roman Law in the State of Nature

Roman Law in the State of Nature

The Wars of the Romans

The Wars of the Romans

Towards the Critique of Violence

Towards the Critique of Violence

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