BOOK: Edward James Kolla, Sovereignty, International Law, and the French Revolution [Studies in Legal History] (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, October 2017), 350 p. ISBN 9781107179547, £ 75.00.

(Source: Cambridge University Press)

Cambridge University Press published Sovereignty, International Law, and the French Revolution, a new title in the American Society for Legal History’s Studies in Legal History series.

DESCRIPTION:

The advent of the principle of popular sovereignty during the French Revolution inspired an unintended but momentous change in international law. Edward James Kolla explains that between 1789 and 1799, the idea that peoples ought to determine their fates in international affairs, just as they were taking power domestically in France, inspired a series of new and interconnected claims to territory. Drawing on case studies from Avignon, Belgium, the Rhineland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Italy, Kolla traces how French revolutionary diplomats and leaders gradually applied principles derived from new domestic political philosophy and law to the international stage. Instead of obtaining land via dynastic inheritance or conquest in war, the will of the people would now determine the title and status of territory. However, the principle of popular sovereignty also opened up new justifications for aggressive conquest, and this history foreshadowed some of the most controversial questions in international relations today.

Expands the study of the history of international law to the French Revolution and goes beyond the areas in which this history has recently boomed

Enriches the history of the Revolution by using legal methodology that helps unravel some perennial debates in the historiography of the Revolution 

The chapters follow case studies in discrete locations; these case studies display both innovations in each case as well as continuity through the whole period of the book

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Lists of maps

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Popular sovereignty and international law on the periphery of France

2. The union of Avignon and the challenges of self-determination

3. Revolutionary power and the annexation of Belgium

4. Strategic interests, survival, and the left bank of the Rhine

5. Between subject and sovereign states: the sister republics in the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Italy

Conclusion

Selected bibliography.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Edward James Kolla, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service in Qatar, at Georgetown University, Washington, DC

Edward James Kolla is Assistant Professor of History in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service in Qatar, Georgetown University, Washington, DC.

Edward James Kolla is Assistant Professor of History in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service in Qatar, Georgetown University, Washington, DC.

For more information, please see the website of the publisher