<p><em>Law and History in Cervantes’ Don Quixote </em>is a deep consideration of the intellectual environment that gave rise to Cervantes’ seminal work. Susan Byrne demonstrates how Cervantes synthesized the debates surrounding the two most authoritative discourses of his era – those of law and history – into a new aesthetic product, the modern novel.</p><p>Byrne uncovers the empirical underpinnings of <em>Don Quixote </em>through a close philological study of Cervantes’ sly questioning of and commentary on these fields. As she skilfully demonstrates, while sixteenth-century historiographers and jurists across southern Europe sought the philosophical nexus of their fields, Cervantes created one through the adventures of a protagonist whose history is all about justice. As such, <em>Law and History in Cervantes’</em> <em>Don Quixote</em> illustrates how Cervantes’ art highlighted the inconsistencies of juridical-historical texts and practice, as well as anticipated the ultimate resolution of their paradoxes.</p>