ABSTRACT
Last Will is necessarily related to particular will in republican theories. This chapter shows Milton's Paradise Lostwhich treats the Fathers proclamation of the Son as a kind of Last Willin the context of republican ideas that have passed through Machiavelli's writings. It discusses the adaptations of the thought as war technologies change and market exchange accelerates in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This allows a reading of Milton's poem not only as sharing Shakespeare's penchant for the follower, but also as harbinger of new concerns. The epilogue begins by describing the tradition typically cited by U. S. legal studies that evaluate the private property right. That tradition is contrasted with those brought to bear by this studies humanities-based approach. Discussed here is the recent trajectory of certain conservative legal theorists, notably Robert Nozick and Richard Epstein, from a libertarian stance to a law-and-economics approach.
