Book Review: To the Uttermost Parts of the Earth: Legal Imagination and International Power, 1300–1870 by Martti Koskenniemi, Cambridge University Press, 2021, 1125 pages. ISBN: 978-0521-76859-7 (hardback), ISBN: 978-0521-74534-5 (paperback)

Abstract

The first impression that might strike a general reader glancing at Koskenniemi ’ s laborious work To the Uttermost Parts of the Earth: Legal Imagination and International Power 1300 – 1870 is to call it a book narrating the dubious history of international law. Yet, such an impression is refuted by reading the whole work in depth, albeit in its vastness. As the overarching objec-tives of Koskenniemi ’ s work are rooted in seeking out how legal imaginations pervaded Europe in the past and their connectivity with the use of power, Koskenniemi describes his book as a work devoted to the study of the history of the legal imagination. The book opens with two chapters that establish its overall framework. The first chapter unleashes how Christianity played an indispensable role in the early development of statehood in medieval Europe under French monarchs. A special emphasis is given to a dis-cussion on the reconciliation between jurisdiction and property rights, and Koskenniemi specifies the contribution made by French-Italian jurists from medieval universities such as Paris and Bologna to the early development of the legal profession. The next chapter titled “ The Political Theology of Ius Gentium ” unfolds the rise of Spanish legal imagination during its