Summary: A four thousand-year history of the ways different cultures have ordered their societies through various forms of law.

Every group of people develops rules to order their life together. And this has been true throughout history, whether through rulings of the city elders at the gate resolving various disputes through various legal codes. Fernanda Pirie set herself the task in this book of describing and making some sense of the four thousand year global history of laws in their various forms.

She identifies three major streams of law, the Mesopotamian that influenced the West, the Indian Brahmin, and that of China, influence much of east and southeast Asia. The book consists of three parts: the visions of order that accounted for the rise of these traditions from the Code of Hammurabi through to the European courts that arose in the wake of the fall of Rome; the development of these traditions in the Medieval period tracing the expansion upon religious law, imperial law in China and the courts and customs of Europe; and finally, law in the modern law and the development of the rule of law in western democracies and its import into colonial situations, the growth of Islamic Law, and the expansion of international law.

She traces a common thread through history: the use and development of law to order society–punishing murder, compensating injuries and damages, regulating marriage, family, and inheritance, protecting property and regulating commerce. She explores the various forms of laws from case laws to legal codes and common law, administrative structures to promulgate and implement legal codes from trade associations to royal courts, and the judicial structures to adjudicate disputes, determining guilt and innocence, and passing sentences. One of the most fascinating chapters traced the use of ordeal when the veracity of witnesses could not be readily discerned to the subsequent development of rules of evidence and trials by a jury of one’s peers. What is also striking is the fascinating array of ways in which all this was implemented from mediators to local to royal rulers and emperors, to our modern courts.

For me, the book alternated between fascinating discussions and hard slogs through an array of practices and their variations in various European royal courts, along with movement, often within chapters from European to Islamic to Chinese systems. The array of detail made it difficult at times to see the forest for all the individually interesting trees. I found it hard to discern a larger argument or structure with the mass of descriptive detail, apart from the overview and concluding discussions of the universal development of legal systems to organize social life.

Perhaps it is the task this author set herself, one for which she evidences obvious enthusiasm, to render a global history of law in under 460 pages of text. The tension between comprehensiveness and elegant structure must have been a challenge. The work has this in its favor, it is free of legal jargon and highly readable over all. And it raises the profound question of why so many and various cultures found it necessary to use laws to order their lives. ( )

This is a rather ambitious survey of how three (3) legal models developed and how they were used. Most of the text focused on Western Law … arguably the predominant model in the modern world. Then we get legal systems development around the Indus valley by legal specialist/scholars (Brahmin) as well as a brief examination of the bureaucratic legalism of the Chinese code of laws. All of these sought to bring about order within a society and were frequently seen as a marker for “civilization” itself, even if compliance/enforcement was marginal most of the time. The book wraps up with how smaller social units/clubs/et. al frequently had their own set of rules/laws that were used to mediate conflicts before they were escalated to the superior/national courts; which were typically a solution of last resort for many different reasons. There is also a brief discussion on the development of international courts.

There was quite a lot of interesting information … and at times, it became somewhat repetitive (so this is not really a book to read through in one setting … take you time with it). I think this book would be of interest to any reader interested in history and sociology/political science.

Introduction: The Promise of Law

Part I: Visions of Order
Chapter 1 - Mesopotamia and the Land of the Bible
Chapter 2 - Indian Brahmins: The Order of the Cosmos
Chapter 3 - Chinese Emperors: Codes, Punishments, and Bureaucracy
Chapter 4 - Advocates and Jurists: Intellectual Pursuits in Ancient Rome
Chapter 5 - Jewish and Islamic Scholars: God’s Path for the World
Chapter 6 - European Kings: Courts and Customs After the Fall of Rome

Part II: The Promise of Civilization
Chapter 7 - At The Margins: Lawmaking on the Fringes of Christianity and Islam
Chapter 8 - Embracing the Laws of Religion: The Hindu, Jewish, and Muslim Worlds
Chapter 9 - Imperial Law and Divine Justice in the Medieval China
Chapter 10 - Courts and Customs in the European Middle Ages
Chapter 11 - The Problem of Judgement: Oaths, Ordeals, and Evidence

Part III: Ordering The World
Chapter 12 - From Kings to Empires: The Rise of Europe and America
Chapter 13 - Colonialism: Exporting the Law
Chapter 14 - In the Shadow of the State: Islamic Law in the Modern World
Chapter 15 - Turning Their Backs on the State: Tribes, Villages, Networks, and Gangs
Chapter 16 - Beyond the State: International Laws

I was given this free advance reader copy (ARC) ebook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.
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