Document Type

Book Review

Publication Date

1998

Abstract

Ask yourself why you are reading a review of a book about a colony called Puerto Rico in a journal on international law. Isn't Puerto Rico a self-governing Commonwealth? Isn't it part of the United States? If you decide to buy the book, ask yourself where in the bookstore you should look for it. In the international relations section? The U.S. history section? A turn-of-the-century Supreme Court case analyzing the status of Puerto Rico (and other territories "acquired" by the United States in 1901) may provide some guidance: Puerto Rico is "foreign in a domestic sense."' Perhaps the bookstore has a section on "not really foreign" countries or "more-or-less domestic" territories. Try using other phrases that have described Puerto Rico over the past century to refine your search: "Possession." "'A sort of an autonomous dependency'" (p. 105). "Unique." You may have to go to the information desk.

Disciplines

International Law | Law | Legal History

Comments

Puerto Rico: The Trials of the Oldest Colony in the World by José Trías Monge, Yale University Press, 1997, pp. v, 228, $35.00.

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