Before Eminent Domain: Toward a History of Expropriation of Land for the Common Good (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781469622194)

In this concise history of expropriation of land for the common good in Europe and North America from medieval times to 1800, Susan Reynolds contextualizes the history of an important legal doctrine regarding the relationship between government and the institution of private property.

Before Eminent Domain concentrates on western Europe and the English colonies in America. As Reynolds argues, expropriation was a common legal practice in many societies in which individuals had rights to land. It was generally accepted that land could be taken from them, with compensation, when the community, however defined, needed it. She cites examples of the practice since the early Middle Ages in England, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, and from the seventeenth century in America.

Reynolds concludes with a discussion of past and present ideas and assumptions about community, individual rights, and individual property that underlie the practice of expropriation but have been largely ignored by historians of both political and legal thought.

Author: Susan Reynolds
ISBN-10: 146962219X
ISBN-13: 9781469622194
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Language: English
Published: 12/01/2014
Pages: 192
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.53lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.43d