Hybrid Constitutions

“In Hybrid Constitutions, Vicki Hsueh challenges the prevailing tendency in political theory to find in early-modern European colonialism the origins of modern liberalism’s exclusions and inclination toward uniformity. Through her detailed analyses of charters, constitutions, and treaties, she shows that colonial encounters—including encounters and negotiations among Europeans themselves, as well as between Europeans and Native Americans—were much more complex, contingent, and contested than broad-brush accounts would imply. This subtle and impressive book will be important for colonial historians and political theorists alike.” - David Armitage, author of The Declaration of Independence: A Global History

“[S]ignificant and exciting. . .offer[s] compelling readings of important texts and thinkers, and suggest[s] whole new trajectories of research linking the American past and present to an evolving American future.” - Andrew R. Murphy, Perspectives on Politics

“Hsueh demonstrates mastery of an impressive range of scholarship in both modern and postmodern political theory. Students of United States constitutional history will have to confront her complex analysis if they hold to a belief that the colonial period represented an emerging structural consensus.” - Tim Alan Garrison, Ethnohistory

“Hybrid Constitutions is very clearly written and provides a succinct and interesting overview of selected early constitutions and charters and historical writing about them that initiates an important debate. As an introduction to this literature and an intervention into colonial and sovereignty studies Hsueh's book is a helpful resource.” - Jacqueline Stevens, Theory & Event

“The book…presents a clear thesis and educates the reader on the important, and often neglected, issue of hybrid constitutions in proprietary colonies.” - Stephanie Fortner, Journal of the North Carolina Association of Historians