Derecho indiano, Spanish colonial law, has been a vigorous subdiscipline of legal history since the early 20th century. In 1997, in his Nuevos horizontes en el estudio histórico del derecho indiano, Argentinian legal historian Víctor Tau Anzoátegui considers some hitherto neglected perspectives. What has been achieved since then ? What issues are being dealt with today ? In this volume, scholars from different parts of the Western world address several of the current challenges confronting derecho indiano.

Richard J. Ross is Professor of Law and History at the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign. His research interests center on the development of early American law in an Atlantic world and comparative early Modern framework. Work in this vein includes: "Legal Communications and Imperial Governance: British North America and Spanish America Compared," in The Cambridge History of Law in America, Vol. 1 (Cambridge, 2008); and Legal Pluralism and Empires, 1600-1850, co-edited with Lauren Benton (NYU Press, 2013). With Steven Wilf, he is at work on The Beginnings of American Law: A Comparative History (under contract, Yale University Press).