Lauren Benton

Lauren Benton is Barton M. Biggs Professor of History and Professor of Law. She taught previously at Vanderbilt University, and before that at New York University. Benton’s research focuses on colonial law, the history of empires, and the history of international law. Her most recent books are the coedited A World at Sea: Maritime Practices in Global History and Rage for Order: The British Empire and the Origins of International Law, coauthored with Lisa Ford. Previous books include A Search for Sovereignty: Law and Geography in European Empires and Law and Colonial Cultures: Legal Regimes in World History, which received the James Willard Hurst Prize and the World Historical Association’s Bentley Book Prize. In 2019, Benton was awarded the Toynbee Foundation Prize for significant contributions to global history. Benton served as Dean of Humanities and Dean of the Graduate School at NYU and as Dean of Arts and Science at Vanderbilt. She is currently president of the American Society of Legal History.