This book provides an historically informed reconstruction of the social practices that have
shaped the formation of the modern subject from the early modern period to the present. The
formal legal protections accorded to subjects are and always have been latent in social
practices norms and language before they are articulated in formal legal orders. Vesting
argues that in Western societies legal personhood is closely tied to three ideal types of
social personhood - what he calls the gentleman the manager and Homo Digitalis. By examining
these three ideal types and their emergence in society we can see that Western formal law does
not bring these ideal types into being but on the contrary arises from the social and
cultural conditions that these ideal types generate and reflect. Correspondingly Western legal
personhood or 'legal subjectivity' arises from the history and culture of Western nations
not the other way around. Therefore signature features of Western formal law particularly its
valorization of the rights of persons (whether natural or non-natural) come from particular
socio-historical cultural developments that had already generated the strong ideas of social
personhood inherent in the ideal types of the gentleman the manager and Homo Digitalis.
Subjectivity Transformed is a major contribution to legal and social theory and with its
original analysis of the formation of modern subjectivity it will be of interest to students
and scholars throughout the social sciences and humanities.
