Legal History Blog beat me to the announcement of Matthew Mirow's Latin American Constitutions: The Constitution of Cádiz and its Legacy in Spanish America, which has just appeared from Cambridge University Press. Cribbing now from the book's webpage:
Latin American Constitutions provides a comprehensive historical study of constitutionalism in Latin America from the independence period to the present, focusing on the Constitution of Cádiz, a foundational document in Latin American constitutionalism. Although drafted in Spain, it was applied in many regions of Latin America, and deputies from America formed a significant part of the drafting body. The politicization of constitutionalism reflected in Latin America's first moments proved to be a lasting legacy evident in the legal and constitutional world of the region today: many of Latin America's present challenges to establishing effective constitutionalism can be traced to the debates, ideas, structures, and assumptions of this text. This book explores the region's attempts to create effective constitutional texts and regimes in light of an established practice of linking constitutions to political goals and places important constitutional thinkers and regional constitutions, such as the Mexican Constitution of 1917, into their legal and historical context.
I haven't yet had a chance to read this, but it's a great sign of the vitality of Latin American legal history -- and legal history more generally -- and I hope this inspires some comparisons of Latin American and US constitutionalism. I suspect that would be illuminating to both regions. (And whenever I write about Matt's exciting work I feel the need to say that his and John Sprankling's Global Issues in Property inspired Integrating Spaces.)
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