Is comparative legal history an emerging discipline or a much-needed dialogue between two academic subjects? This research handbook presents the field in a uniquely holistic way, and illustrates how comparative law and legal history are inextricably related. Cementing a solid theoretical grounding for the discipline, legal historians and comparatists place this subject at the forefront of legal science. Comprehensive in coverage, this handbook collates theory and method for comparative legal history, as well as discussing international legal sources and judicial and civil institutions. Particular attention is paid to custom and codification, contracts, civil procedure and ownership. By assessing the evolution of law across European, Asian, African and American environments from the pre-modern era to the nineteenth century, the chapters provide stimulating and enlightening cases of legal history through a comparative lens. A centrepiece for this field of scholarship, this research handbook will be an essential resource for scholars interested in comparative law, legal theory and legal history, from both legal and social science backgrounds. Contributors: S.P. Donlan, S. Drescher, M. Dyson, P. Finkelman, D. Freda, A. Giuliani, J.-L. Halperin, D. Heirbaut, E. Kadens, M.S.-H. Kim, A. Masferrer, D. Michalsen, K.A. Modeer, O. Moreteau, J.A. Obarrio, A. Parise, H. Pihlajamaki, W. Swain, A. Taitslin, C.H. van Rhee, J. Vanderlinden

Nineteenth-century Britain witnessed a dramatic increase in its town population, as a hitherto largely rural economy transformed itself into an urban one. Though the political and social issues arising from these events are well-known, little is known about how the British legal process coped with the everyday strains that emerged from the unprecedented scale of these changes. This book explores the river pollution dilemma faced by the British courts during the second half of the nineteenth century when the legal process had to confront the new incompatible realities arising from the increasing amounts of untreatable waste flowing into the rivers. This dilemma struck at the heart of both Victorian urban and rural society, as the necessary sanitary reformation of the swelling cities and expanding industry increasingly poisoned the rivers, threatening the countryside and agricultural rents and livelihoods. Focusing on ten legal disputes, the book investigates the dilemma that faced the courts; namely how to protect the traditional and valued rights of landholders whose rivers and lands were being polluted by industrial waste and untreated sewage, whilst not hindering the progress of sanitary reform and economic progress in the towns. The case studies considered involve major industrialising centres, such as Birmingham, Leeds, Northampton, Wolverhampton and Barnsley, but also include smaller towns such as Tunbridge Wells, Leamington Spa and Harrogate. The fundamental issues raised remain as important today as they did in Victorian times. The need for the courts to balance a variety of conflicting needs and rights within the limits of contemporary technological capabilities often played out in surprising ways, with outcomes not always in line with theoretical expectations. As such the historical context of the disputes provide fascinating insights into nineteenth-century legal process, and the environmental and social attitudes of the times.

This book is a major contribution to our understanding of the role played by law(s) in the British Empire. Using a variety of interdisciplinary approaches, the authors provide in-depth analyses which shine new light on the role of law in creating the people and places of the British Empire. Ranging from the United States, through Calcutta, across Australasia to the Gold Coast, these essays seek to investigate law's central place in the British Empire, and the role of its agents in embedding British rule and culture in colonial territories. One of the first collections to provide a sustained engagement with the legal histories of the British Empire, in particular beyond the settler colonies, this work aims to encourage further scholarship and new approaches to the writing of the histories of that Empire. Legal Histories of the British Empire: Laws, Engagements and Legacies will be of value not only to legal scholars and graduate students, but of interest to all of those who want to know more about the laws in and of the British Empire.

In Custom, Ferdinand Tonnies illustrates the relationship of custom to various aspects of culture, such as religion, gender, and family. Tonnies argues that all social norms are evolved from a basic sense of order, which is largely derived from customs. As such, custom refers to the ideal, and the desirable, and it mediates subjective aspects of social life. Tonnies makes observations in Custom that are just as true today as when they were written over a century ago.

The pivotal idea in Tonnies work is the observation that custom, like its individual counterpart habit, has three distinct aspects: a fact--an actual way of conduct; a norm--a general rule of conduct; and a will. The analysis, extended into the field of collective behavior, helps to explain how far custom can be regarded as a manifestation of a common will.

Custom is a classic contribution in the grand canon of law and society scholarship. Moreover, the volume introduces several key elements of Tonnies' work focusing on broader sociological thought, which benefits both the theoretical understanding of law as an object of social science reflection, as well as provides empirical insights into the roles of law in society.

Medical confidentiality has long been recognised as a core element of medical ethics, but its boundaries are under constant negotiation. Areas of debate in twenty-first century medicine include the use of patient-identifiable data in research, information sharing across public services, and the implications of advances in genetics. This book provides important historical insight into the modern evolution of medical confidentiality in the UK. It analyses a range of perspectives and considers the broader context as well as the specific details of debates, developments and key precedents. With each chapter focusing on a different issue, the book covers the common law position on medical privilege, the rise of public health and collective welfare measures, legal and public policy perspectives on medical confidentiality and privilege in the first half of the twentieth century, contestations over statutory recognition for medical privilege and Crown privilege. It concludes with an overview of twentieth century developments. Bringing fresh insights to oft-cited cases and demonstrating a better understanding of the boundaries of medical confidentiality, the book discusses the role of important interest groups such as the judiciary, Ministry of Health and professional medical bodies. It will be directly relevant for people working or studying in the field of medical law as well as those with an interest in the interaction of law, medicine and ethics.

This, the first of two volumes of Liberty and Union, is a comprehensive constitutional history of the United States from the Anglo-American origins of the Constitution through the colonial and antebellum periods, to the Civil War and the consequent restructuring of the nation.

Written in a clear and engaging narrative style, it successfully unites thorough chronological coverage with a thematic approach, offering critical analysis of core constitutional history topics, set in the political, social, and economic context that made them constitutional issues in the first place. Combining a thoughtful and balanced narrative with an authoritative stance on key issues, the authors explain the past in the light of the past, without imposing upon it the standards of later generations.

Authored by two experienced professors of History and Law this textbook has been thoughtfully constructed to offer an accessible alternative to dense scholarly works avoiding unnecessary technical jargon, defining legal terms and historical personalities where appropriate, and making explicit connections between constitutional themes and historical events. For students in an undergraduate or postgraduate constitutional history course, or anyone with a general interest in constitutional developments, this book will be essential reading.

Useful features include:

• Full glossary of legal terminology
• Recommended reading
• A table of cases
• Extensive supporting artwork
• Companion website

Useful documents provided:

• Declaration of Independence
• Articles of Confederation
• Constitution of the United States of America
• Chronological list of Supreme Court justices

The dispossession of indigenous peoples by conquest regimes remains a pressing issue. This book, unlike most other books on the subject, contrasts two different colonial administrations - first the Chinese Qing Empire, then, from 1895, the Japanese. It shows how, under the Chinese legal system, the Qing employed the Chinese legal system to manage the relationship between the increasing numbers of Han Chinese settlers and the indigenous peoples, and how, although the Qing regime refrained from taking actions to transform aboriginal land tenure, nevertheless Chinese settlers were able to manipulate aboriginal land tenure to their advantage. It goes on to examine the very different approach of the Japanese colonial administration, which following the Meiji Restoration of 1868 had begun to adopt a Western legal framework, demonstrating how this was intentionally much more intrusive, and how the Japanese modernized legal framework significantly disrupted aboriginal land tenure. Based on extensive original research, the book provides important insights into colonisation, different legal traditions and the impact of colonial settlement on indigenous peoples.

Susan Paterson Glover here presents, in modern type, a critical edition of the first printed work by an English woman writer, Sarah Chapone, on the inequity of the common law regime for married women. Glover's extended, original introduction provides an account of Chapone's life; a discussion of the influence of Mary Astell's work on Chapone's thought and work; and a review of the legal status of women in England's eighteenth century, with particular attention to marriage and the doctrine of coverture and the relations of women, law, and property. It concludes by acknowledging the importance of this text to any consideration of the evolution of a discourse of "rights" for women in the Anglo-American legal tradition, and its contribution to a movement for property rights and women's equality whose genesis is generally located in the legislative changes of the nineteenth century. The edition contains valuable appendices including, among other writings, excerpts from Chapone's correspondence with Samuel Richardson; excerpts of responses to Chapone's work from the Weekly Miscellany; and excerpts from contemporary legal literature. Also included is an annotated text of Chapone's pamphlet on the Muilman controversy, Remarks on Mrs. Muilman's Letter to the Right Honourable The Earl of Chesterfield (London, 1750).

Law mattered in later medieval England and Ireland. A quick glance at the sources suggests as much. From the charter to the will to the court roll, the majority of the documents which have survived from later medieval England and Ireland, and medieval Europe in general, are legal in nature. Yet despite the fact that law played a prominent role in medieval society, legal history has long been a marginal subject within medieval studies both in Britain and North America. Much good work has been done in this field, but there is much still to do. This volume, a collection of essays in honour of Paul Brand, who has contributed perhaps more than any other historian to our understanding of the legal developments of later medieval England and Ireland, is intended to help fill this gap. The essays collected in this volume, which range from the twelfth to the sixteenth century, offer the latest research on a variety of topics within this field of inquiry. While some consider familiar topics, they do so from new angles, whether by exploring the underlying assumptions behind England's adoption of trial by jury for crime or by assessing the financial aspects of the General Eyre, a core institution of jurisdiction in twelfth- and thirteenth-century England. Most, however, consider topics which have received little attention from scholars, from the significance of judges and lawyers smiling and laughing in the courtroom to the profits and perils of judicial office in English Ireland. The essays provide new insights into how the law developed and functioned within the legal profession and courtroom in late medieval England and Ireland, as well as how it pervaded the society at large.

Violence and community were intimately linked in the ancient world. While various aspects of violence have been long studied on their own (warfare, revolution, murder, theft, piracy), there has been little effort so far to study violence as a unified field and explore its role in community formation. This volume aims to construct such an agenda by exploring the historiography of the study of violence in antiquity, and highlighting a number of important paradoxes of ancient violence. It explores the forceful nexus between wealth, power and the passions by focusing on three major aspects that link violence and community: the attempts of communities to regulate and canalise violence through law, the constitutive role of violence in communal identities, and the ways in which communities dealt with violence in regards to private and public space, landscapes and territories. The contributions to this volume range widely in both time and space: temporally, they cover the full span from the archaic to the Roman imperial period, while spatially they extend from Athens and Sparta through Crete, Arcadia and Macedonia to Egypt and Israel.

This book presents a comprehensive account of past and present efforts to introduce the jury system in Japan. Four legal reforms are documented and assessed: the implementation of the bureaucratic and all-judge special jury systems in the 1870s, the introduction of the all-layperson jury in the late 1920s, the transplantation of the Anglo-American-style jury system to Okinawa under the U.S. Occupation, and the implementation of the mixed-court lay judge (saiban'in) system in 2009. While being primarily interested in the related case studies, the book also discusses the instances when the idea of introducing trial by jury was rejected at different times in Japan's history. Why does legal reform happen? What are the determinants of success and failure of a reform effort? What are the prospects of the saiban'in system to function effectively in Japan? This book offers important insights on the questions that lie at the core of the law and society debate and are highly relevant for understanding contemporary Japan and its recent and distant past.

Negotiating religious diversity, as well as negotiating different forms and degrees of commitment to religious belief and identity, constitutes a major challenge for all societies. Recent developments such as the 'de-secularisation' of the world, the transformation and globalisation of religion and the attacks of September 11 have made religious claims and religious actors much more visible in the public sphere. This volume provides multiple perspectives on the processes through which religious communities create or defend their place in a given society, both in history and in our world today. Offering a critical, cross-disciplinary investigation into processes of negotiating religion and religious diversity, the contributors present new insights on the meaning and substance of negotiation itself. This volume draws on diverse historical, sociological, geographic, legal and political theoretical approaches to take a close look at the religious and political agents involved in such processes as well as the political, social and cultural context in which they take place. Its focus on the European experiences that have shaped not only the history of 'negotiating religion' in this region but also around the world, provides new perspectives for critical inquiries into the way in which contemporary societies engage with religion. This study will be of interest to academics, lawyers and scholars in law and religion, sociology, politics and religious history.

This second collection of papers by Peter Edbury focuses primarily on the literature either composed in the Latin East or closely associated with it. The legal treatises from the kingdom of Jerusalem and from Cyprus and Antioch have long been recognized as providing insights into the juridical and social history of these places in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and some of the papers re-issued here reflect the author's work in re-editing two of the most famous of these treaties, those by John of Ibelin-Jaffa and Philip of Novara. The studies on historical literature are chiefly concerned with vernacular texts, most notably the Old French translation of William of Tyre and its Continuations, again much a result of his current work on a new edition of the Continuations and the associated text known as La Chronique d'Ernoul. Other papers concerned with aspects of the narrative traditions that furnish a significant part of our knowledge of Lusignan Cyprus in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and with which in one way or another Peter Edbury has been engaged since the early 1970s.

In recent years, controversy has surrounded the role of top government lawyers in the United States and the United Kingdom. Allegations of bad lawyering and bad ethics in public office over the 'torture memos' in the United States and the political pressure placed on the Attorney-General in the United Kingdom to approve the legality of the Iraq war, have seen these relatively obscure group of government lawyers thrust into the public debate. Unlike its Anglo-American contemporaries, Australia's chief legal adviser, the Solicitor-General, has remained largely out of the public eye. This collection provides a rare and overdue insight into a fundamental public institution in all Australian jurisdictions. It provides a historical, theoretical, practical and comparative perspective of this little known, but vitally important, office at a time when the transparency and accountability of government has taken on an increased significance. Of interest to anyone interested in the integrity of government, the book will be particularly useful to government, political parties and the academy. It will also be a valuable reference work to those working towards a redefinition of the role of top government legal advisors.

Originally published in 1999, this book deals with the cultural and legal debates which have counterposed the right to free speech and the need to protect Christian sensibilities in Britain from the time of the French Revolution to the present day. Central to the book is a close study of the content and public reception of the anti-Christian literature of the 19th century associated with the names G.W.Foote and J.W. Gott, the Freethinker and The Truthseeker. David Nash here also examines a variety of critical-theoretical approaches to blasphemy and blasphemous writing, including postmodernism and the work of Foucault and Said. The book concludes with a detailed examination of 20th-century blasphemy cases, up to and including the Gay News case, The Last Temptation of Christ and Visions of Ecstasy.

During the inspired years of the Athenian empire, through the tragedy of its collapse, to the more prosaic era that followed, most of the great names in Athenian history were involved in the procedures of criminal law. Political Trials in Ancient Greece, first published in 1990, explores the relationships between historical process, constitution, law, political machinations and foreign policy, concentrating on fifth and fourth century Athens and on Macedonia. These trials contribute significant details to our knowledge of such towering figures as Aeschylus, Pericles, Thucydides, Alcibiades, Socrates, Demosthenes and Aristotle, as well as a diverse collection of Macedonian defendants. The jurisdiction of the Areopagus, trials of communities, and the personal jurisdiction of the Macedonian king are also examined. Richard Bauman's original account broadens our understanding of Greek legal institutions and of the ancient Greek approach to the law, as well as the general ethos of Athenian and Macedonian society.

This, the concise edition of "Liberty and Union," is an abridged constitutional history of the United States, designed for short single-semester courses, comprising the key topics from Volumes 1 and 2.

Written in a clear and engaging narrative style, it successfully unites thorough chronological coverage with a thematic approach, offering critical analysis of core constitutional history topics, set in the political, social, and economic context that made them constitutional issues in the first place. Combining a thoughtful and balanced narrative with an authoritative stance on key issues, the authors deliberately explain the past in the light of the past, without imposing upon it the standards of later generations.

Authored by two experienced professors in the field, this concise edition presents seminal topics while retaining the narrative flow of the two full original volumes. An accessible alternative to dense scholarly works, this textbook avoids unnecessary technical jargon, defines legal terms and historical personalities where appropriate, and makes explicit connections between constitutional themes and historical events. For students in a short undergraduate or postgraduate constitutional history course, or anyone with a general interest in constitutional developments, this book will be essential reading.

Useful features include:

• Full glossary of legal terminology
• Recommended reading
• A table of cases
• Extracts from primary documents
• Companion website

Useful documents provided:

• Declaration of Independence
• Articles of Confederation
• Constitution of the United States of America
• Chronological list of Supreme Court justices

Originally published between 1920-70,The History of Civilization was a landmark in early twentieth century publishing. It was published at a formative time within the social sciences, and during a period of decisive historical discovery. The aim of the general editor, C.K. Ogden, was to summarize the most up to date findings and theories of historians, anthropologists, archaeologists and sociologists. This reprinted material is available as a set or in the following groupings: * Prehistory and Historical Ethnography Set of 12: 0-415-15611-4: GBP800.00 * Greek Civilization Set of 7: 0-415-15612-2: GBP450.00 * Roman Civilization Set of 6: 0-415-15613-0: GBP400.00 * Eastern Civilizations Set of 10: 0-415-15614-9: GBP650.00 * Judaeo-Christian Civilization Set of 4: 0-415-15615-7: GBP250.00 * European Civilization Set of 11: 0-415-15616-5: GBP700.00

This book is a study of the beginnings of law and the 'primitive' stages of its development, from the first rudimentary rules of conduct to the codes of the legal systems. Its scope extends to both cultures and legal systems from the ancient and medieval past: those of the Babylonians and Assyrians, Hittites, Hebrews, Romans, Hindus, English and other German peoples, and those of Africa, Australia and America. Correlating early economic and legal development, the book illustrates how laws change with the development of material culture. Originally published in 1971.

Frankfurt am Main, in common with other imperial German cities, enjoyed a large degree of legal autonomy during the early modern period, and produced a unique and rich body of criminal archives. In particular, Frankfurt's Strafenbuch, which records all criminal sentences between 1562 and 1696, provides a fascinating insight into contemporary penal trends. Drawing on this and other rich resources, Dr. Boes reveals shifting and fluid attitudes towards crime and punishment and how these were conditioned by issues of gender, class, and social standing within the city's establishment. She attributes a significant role in this process to the steady proliferation of municipal advocates, jurists trained in Roman Law, who wielded growing legal and penal prerogatives. Over the course of the book, it is demonstrated how the courts took an increasingly hard line with select groups of people accused of criminal behavior, and the open manner with which advocates exercised cultural, religious, racial, gender, and sexual-orientation repressions. Parallel with this, however, is identified a trend of marked leniency towards soldiers who enjoyed an increasingly privileged place within the judicial system. In light of this discrepancy between the treatment of civilians and soldiers, the advocates' actions highlight the emergence and spread of a distinct military judicial culture and Frankfurt's city council's contribution to the quasi-militarization of a civilian court. By highlighting the polarized and changing ways the courts dealt with civilian and military criminals, a fuller picture is presented not just of Frankfurt's sentencing and penal practices, but of broader attitudes within early modern Germany to issues of social position and cultural identity.

This collection focuses on how troubled times impact upon the law, the body politic, and the complex interrelationship among them. It centres on how they engage in a dialogue with the imagination and literature, thus triggering an emergent (but thus far underdeveloped) field concerning the 'legal imagination.' Legal change necessitates a close examination of the historical, cultural, social, and economic variables that promote and affect such change. This requires us to attend to the variety of non-legal variables that percolate throughout the legal system. The collection probes 'the transatlantic constitution' and focuses attention on imagination in a common law context that seems to foster imagination as a cultural capability. The book is divided into four parts. The first part begins with a set of insights into the historical development of legal education in England and concludes with a reflection on the historical transition of England from an absolute monarchy to a republic. The second part of the volume examines the role that imagination plays in the functioning of the courts. The third part focuses on patterns of thought in legal scholarship and detects how legal imagination contributes to the process of producing new legal categories and terminology. The fourth part focuses on patterns of thought in legal scholarship, and looks to the impact of the imagination on legal thinking in the future. The work provides stimulating reading for those working in the areas of legal philosophy, legal history and law and humanities and law and language.

This study provides a comprehensive critique - forensic, historical, and theoretical - of the moral panic paradigm, using empirically grounded ethnographic research to argue that the panic paradigm suffers from fundamental flaws that make it a myth rather than a viable academic perspective. This study provides a comprehensive critique - forensic, historical, and theoretical - of the moral panic paradigm, using empirically grounded ethnographic research to argue that the panic paradigm suffers from fundamental flaws that make it a myth rather than a viable academic perspective.

In a just society the law not only applies to all equally, but also arises from the consent of the people it embraces. As such, justice implies that people have access to governance. A just society provides and guards social and individual rights for all its members. The freedom of speech, therefore, is a right of all, and society has institutionalized processes to guarantee that freedom.

Due to the American people's understanding of exclusion and rank, the meaning of justice was fragmented by social status and class. While this book views American justice through a prism of social-class conflict, Gregory C. Leavitt argues that it would be incorrect to portray this perspective as somehow whole. American justice is relative to many cultural groupings and conditions and is thus at the same distance from its encompassing ideal understood by common Americans.

Beginning with the late eighteenth century and ending in the late twentieth century, Leavitt traces the history of class conflict and the struggle for justice among Americans. He argues that class struggles remain a significant factor in American social problems, because the American situation grew out of government promises of freedom and liberty to the lower class and the development of a powerful middle class. This is a provocative contribution to the debate over the future of social justice in America.

Although the Anti-Corn Law league played a most important part in the politics of the 1840's, there is no modern study of its activities and organization. Based on several years work on the original sources, as well as papers belonging to George Wilson, President of the League for most of its life, this book sheds light on the internal history and organization of the League. Written from a political perspective, Dr McCord describes the origin, organization and activities of the League, together with its effect on the contemporary political scene, and as such, fills an important gap in our knowledge of the political history of early Victorian England. At the same time, the book provides an analysis of an unusually well-documented political pressure group, making it a most welcome addition to literature for historians and economic historians, as well as students of political science. This book was first published in 1958.

Ruth Miller provides a re-assessment of the concepts of law, religion, the state, criminality and authority within the Ottoman Empire and Turkey betwwen 1840 and 1940.