Colonies, Commerce, and Constitutional Law: Rid Yourselves of Ultramaria and other writings on Spain and Spanish America

ed. Philip Schofield (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1995), pp. lxv, 536.

Now published for the first time, Colonies, Commerce and Constitutional Law is a major theoretical analysis of the harmful effects of colonies on commerce and constitutional democracy, and is one of the most important studies of colonialism written in the nineteenth century. Of the four essays collected in this volume, three have been edited directly from the original manuscript sources. The only essay to have previously appeared in print, `Observations on the Restrictive and Prohibitory Commercial System', is generally regarded as an early classic statement of the beneficial effects of freedom of trade. The volume will be of immense interest to economists, philosophers, political scientists, historians of political and economic thought and international relations, legal theorists and constitutional lawyers, as well as to students of Spain and Spanish America.