The Making of Modern Property: Reinventing Roman Law in Europe and its Peripheries 1789–1950

In  this original intellectual history, Anna di Robilant traces the history  of one of the most influential legal, political, and intellectual  projects of modernity: the appropriation of Roman property law by  liberal nineteenth-century jurists to fit the purposes of modern Europe.  Drawing from a wealth of primary sources, many of which have never been  translated into English, di Robilant outlines how a broad network of  European jurists reinvented the classical Roman concept of property to  support the process of modernisation. By placing this intellectual  project within its historical context, she shows how changing class  relations, economic policies and developing ideologies converged to  produce the basis of modern property law. Bringing these developments to  the twentieth century, this book demonstrates how this largely  fabricated version of Roman property law shaped and continues to shape  debates concerning economic growth, sustainability, and democratic  participation.