Lauren Benton

In 2019, Benton received the Toynbee Prize for significant contributions to global history.

Benton’s early scholarship focused on culture and economic development. Her book Invisible Factories: The Informal Economy and Industrial Development in Spain examined industrial restructuring and the “informal sector,” or underground economy, in Spain during the transition to democracy of the 1970s and early 1980s. Benton also co-edited a volume with Alejandro Portes and Manuel Castells on the informal sector in comparative economic development.

Benton served as Dean for Humanities and as Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Science at New York University, where she was Professor of History from 2003 to 2015 and Affiliate Professor of Law from 2008 to 2015. In 2015, Benton joined the faculty of Vanderbilt University and served as Dean of the College of Arts and Science from 2015 to 2018. She is the Nelson O. Tyrone, Jr. Professor of History and Professor of Law at Vanderbilt University. Benton is President-elect of the American Society for Legal History.

Lauren Benton (born 1956) is an American historian known for her works on the history of empires, colonial and imperial law, and the history of international law. She is the Nelson O. Tyrone, Jr. Professor of History and Professor of Law at Vanderbilt University.

Lauren Benton was born in 1956 in Baltimore, Maryland, and attended high school at the Park School of Baltimore in Brooklandville, Maryland. She graduated from Harvard University in 1978, with a concentration in economics. Benton received her Ph.D. in Anthropology and History from Johns Hopkins University in 1987.

Rage for Order: The British Empire and the History of International Law, 1800-1850, which Benton coauthored with Lisa Ford, appeared in 2016 and uncovers a vast project of global legal reform in the early nineteenth century. Benton and Ford introduce the terms "middle power" and "vernacular constitutionalism" in tracing the efforts of British imperial officials and reformers to reimagine and remake the imperial constitution. The book also analyzes the way imperial law prefigured international law and the rise of the interstate order.