ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 clarifies the subject and purpose of this book, the background of the School of Salamanca and the affairs of the Indies, and the achievements of previous researches (e.g., Pagden, Brett, Elliott, Fernández-Santamaría, Lupher, Fitzmaurice, Cavallar, Koskenniemi, and Anghie). This chapter then analyzes the formation of the early modern political order, focusing both on internal and external aspects of commonwealth power, and shows how Salamancans developed a unique view of political order, which was different both from the views of medieval thought and from those of the major early modern thinkers, such as Machiavelli, Bodin, and Grotius.
