Before Eminent Domain: Toward a History of Expropriation of Land for the Common Good
Susan Reynolds
Abstract
This book presents a history of expropriation of land for the common good in Europe and North America from medieval times to 1800. It contextualizes the history of an important legal doctrine regarding the relationship between government and the institution of private property. The book concentrates on western Europe and the English colonies in America. As it 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. ... More
This book presents a history of expropriation of land for the common good in Europe and North America from medieval times to 1800. It contextualizes the history of an important legal doctrine regarding the relationship between government and the institution of private property. The book concentrates on western Europe and the English colonies in America. As it 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. It cites examples of the practice since the early Middle Ages in England, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, and from the seventeenth century in America. The book 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.
Keywords:
expropriation of land,
common good,
private property,
English colonies,
community,
individual rights,
individual property
Bibliographic Information
Print publication date: 2010 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780807833537 |
Published to North Carolina Scholarship Online: July 2014 |
DOI:10.5149/9780807895863_reynolds |