This book is a memoir that a great master of comparative law wrote for the benefit of his children and grandchildren. It is the story of the life and accomplishments of a man that had to flee Nazi brutality and found a new home in the United States. The life and the work of this exceptionally gifted scholar are vividly conveyed in a text that offers the context in which comparative law "came of age" as a mature academic discipline. The work of Schlesinger is alive in "The Common Core of European Private Law" where he served as an honorary editor. This book contains a foreword by Professor Ugo Mattei, who was a student of Schlesinger's and later his successor on the Chair of Comparative Law at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law.