Infidels and Empires in a New World Order

David M. Lantigua is Assistant Professor of Moral Theology and Christian Ethics at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. He was previously a faculty member at The Catholic University of America and was a former graduate fellow at the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study. He co-authored, with Darrell Fasching and Dell deChant, Comparative Religious Ethics: A Narrative Approach to Global Ethics, 2nd edition (2011). He is also co-editor of Bartolomé de las Casas and the Defense of Amerindian Rights: A Brief History with Documents (2020), part of the Atlantic Crossings series.

• 1. Introduction. International relations beyond Westphalia; Part I. The New World Crucible of Infidel Rights: 2. Theocratic world order and religious wars; 3. Spanish Dominicans and the 'affair of the Indies'; 4. The politics of natural law at Valladolid, 1550–1551; Part II. God, Empires, and International Society: 5. From infidels to savages: empires of commerce and natural rights; 6. The scholastic law of nations, native occupation, and human solidarity.

'In this beautifully written and exhaustively researched book, David Lantigua demonstrates the importance of sixteenth-century Spanish theological debates about the conquest of the New World for the subsequent development of international order and international law. Lantigua expertly reconstructs these debates, culminating in the Valladolid junta where Sepúlveda and Las Casas debated the justice of subjugating infidels for the purpose of spreading the Christian faith. In doing so, he uncovers theological arguments both for and against imperial conquest that would profoundly shape European thought and practice for centuries to come.' Luke Glanville, author of Sharing Responsibility: The History and Future of Protection from Atrocities