Legal History Books - Page 5

The Common Legal Past of Europe: 1000-1800 (Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Canon Law)

Manlio Bellomo

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

This is a broad history of the western European legal tradition. From the modern age the author looks back to a time when Europe had a common law that transcended national and legal boundaries. This common law, which Bellomo calls the "ius commune", had developed in the 12th century from the fusion of Roman, canon and feudal law. Existing within the framework of the "ius commune" were the local laws or "iura propria" - the myriad laws of everyday life, the laws particular to the various kingdoms, principalities, cities, guilds and secular and ecclesiastical corporations. Bellomo illustrates how for centuries the "ius commune" permeated every aspect of the "iura propria", marking European law indelibly with its stamp. Because the "iura propria" emerged from the unifying norms and principles of the "ius commune", one can not properly understand local European systems of law without first understanding the "ius commune" and its influence on the legal concepts, institutions, procedures, documents, and doctrines of the "iura propria". Linking his history to modern day concerns, Bellomo argues that the codification that occurred in European countries during the 18th and 19th centuries has introduced ambiguity, rigidity and uncertainty into legal systems. A new common law for the whole of Europe, he asserts, would provide a much better vehicle for legal change and development in a time when the economic barriers between European nations are crumbling. Bellomo then describes the beginnings of the "ius commune" in the schools of the 12th century, discusses the development of Italian, French and German "iura propria", and incorporates into the text sketches of the great jurists who gave common law its intellectual vigour. He concludes with an account of the humanist jurists of the 15th, 16th and early 17th centuries.

Encyclopedia of Islamic Law: A Compendium of the Major Schools

Laleh Bakhtiar, Kevin Reinhart

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Informative... But intellectually useless. 2 out of 5 stars.
12 of 16 people found this review helpful.

This book is actually a direct translation of a major comparative study by the late shi`i scholar Muhammad Jowwad Maghniyyah. The original work as well as the translation simply list religious rules regarding certain cases and highlights the differences between the Sunni and shi`i scholars.

The work rarely mention the reasoning behind any legal rule and the information is very brief. For practicing Muslims, the book can be a great source of information; for non-practicing Muslims, it is useless.

The translation is not the best I have seen either, I have read better translations of the same work and this one is the worst.

For the kind of information that is contained in the book, any online resource of Islamic law (of the same calible) will be more useful and save more time.

Editorial Review:

The various schools of law are compared and contrasted on all issues of the Shariah including individual worship (purification, prescribed prayer, prescribed fasting, prescribed charity and prescribed pilgrimage), economic issues including inheritance, endowments, wills and bequests, legal disability and social issues of marriage and divorce.

Women in Roman Law and Society (Midland Book)

Jane Gardner

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Subjects -> History -> World -> Women in History

Editorial Review:

The legal situation of the women of ancient Rome was extremely complex, and - since there was no sharp distinction between free woman, freedwoman and slave - the definition of their legal position is often heard. Basing her lively analysis on detailed study of literary and epigraphic material, Jane F. Gardner explores the provisions of the Roman laws as they related to women. Dr Gardner describes the ways in which the laws affected women throughout their lives - in families, as daughters, wives and parents; as heiresses and testators; as owners and controllers of property; and as workers. She looks with particular attention at the ways in which the strict letter of the law came to be modified, softened, circumvented, and even changed, pointing out that the laws themselves tell us as much about the economic situation of women and the range of opportunities available to them outside the home.

Catechumenate and the Law (Font and Table Series) (Font and Table Series)

John M. Huels

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Subjects -> Religion & Spirituality -> Christianity -> Catholicism -> Roman Catholicism
Subjects -> Religion & Spirituality -> Christianity -> Catholicism -> General

Editorial Review:

Everyone who works with Christian initiation will encounter a predicament that only a knowledge of canon law can resolve. This helpful book reviews the various aspects of Christian initiation that are affected by the Church's many sources of canon law, including the canons, the rite itself, and various documents from Vatican II, and from the Bishops of the United States. Reading lists, legal texts, and an index are included.John M. Huels is a priest of the Servite order. A specialist in liturgical law, he has written many articles and books, including Liturgical Law: An Introduction (Washington, D.C.: The Pastoral Press, 1987), The Pastoral Companion: A Canon Law Handbook for Catholic Ministry (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1986) and Disputed Questions in the Liturgy Today (Liturgy Training Publications, 1988).

Law and the Rise of Capitalism

Michael Tigar, Thomas Emerson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

with a new introduction by the author

foreword by THOMAS EMERSON

"A thought-provoking interpretation of the role of the legal ideology in the bourgeoisie's ascendance to state power."
--Harvard Law Review

Originally published in 1977 and translated into Spanish, Portugese, Greek, and Chinese, Law and the Rise of Capitalism examines the role of law and lawyers in the European bourgeoisie's conquest of power. From the scattered urban uprisings of the eleventh century to the English and French revolutions, Michael Tigar traces this history using charters, letters, statutes, and other primary sources.

Against a backdrop of seven hundred years of bourgeois struggle, Tigar weaves a Marxist theory of law and jurisprudence based upon the Western experience. Contradicting R.H. Tawney and Max Weber, he shows that the legal theory of the insurgent bourgeoisie predated the Protestant Reformation and was a major ideological ingredient of the bourgeois revolution and also helps explain today's revolutionary movements.

In a compelling new introduction, Tigar discusses the struggle for human rights in the historical context of the past two decades, drawing on his own experiences as a fighter for democratic rights in the United States, Europe and South Africa.

Law as Culture: An Invitation

Lawrence Rosen

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Editorial Review:

Law is integral to culture, and culture to law. Often considered a distinctive domain with strange rules and stranger language, law is actually part of a culture's way of expressing its sense of the order of things. In Law as Culture, Lawrence Rosen invites readers to consider how the facts that are adduced in a legal forum connect to the ways in which facts are constructed in other areas of everyday life, how the processes of legal decision-making partake of the logic by which the culture as a whole is put together, and how courts, mediators, or social pressures fashion a sense of the world as consistent with common sense and social identity.

While the book explores issues comparatively, in each instance it relates them to contemporary Western experience. The development of the jury and Continental legal proceedings thus becomes a story of the development of Western ideas of the person and time; African mediation techniques become tests for the style and success of similar efforts in America and Europe; the assertion that one's culture should be considered as an excuse for a crime becomes a challenge to the relation of cultural norms and cultural diversity.

Throughout the book, the reader is invited to approach law afresh, as a realm that is integral to every culture and as a window into the nature of culture itself.

The Plot Against Pepys The Thrilling Untold Story of Espionage and Intrigue in the Tower of London: The Thrilling Untold Story of Espionage and Intrigue in the Tower of London

James Long, Ben Long

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Restoration Witch-Hunting 5 out of 5 stars.
12 of 12 people found this review helpful.

It is obvious that if he had not written his diary, we would know little about Samuel Pepys. The enormous, twelve volume work documents an early part of his life, and gives details about the Great Fire of London and the everyday life of the court of Charles II. It is his candor throughout, though, that gives the famous work its charm, and his descriptions of sexual dalliances show that he was able to be candid because he was writing for himself. He would have been shocked to find that his work had turned into a classic. But Pepys was an important figure within his time. He rose from humble beginnings to become secretary of the Admiralty Board, and he was simply brilliant as a bureaucrat, loving order, efficiency, and facts. No one could achieve such a position without making enemies, but some enemies assaulted Pepys in a bigoted and fantastic way. Pepys wound up accused of treason and was thrown into the Tower of London in 1679. _The Plot against Pepys: The Untold Story of Espionage and Intrigue in the Tower of London_ (Overlook Press) by father and son team James Long and Ben Long has with amazing detail examined this important part of Pepys's life which, since it occurred after the diary years, has not gotten the attention paid to other parts. It is an often gripping tale with the good guy eventually winning, but only because of the sort of hard work of amassing facts he was used to in his admiralty career, and because of a good deal of luck.

There was a real and dangerous plot against Pepys, and it was part of the larger Popish Plot. Britain had yet to gain the stability of the Church of England. There was a wide distrust of Catholics and warnings that they were going to kill Charles II so that his Catholic brother the Duke of York might take the throne. Pepys ordered investigation of a suspect in a supposedly pro-Catholic murder, and thus earned the resentment of the suspect, Colonel John Scott. Scott was one of the great rogues of history; although he was not guilty of this murder, he was guilty of at least one other. He had an international career as swindler, embezzler, spy, and forger, and was a coward in the army to boot. No one should have listened to this consummate rascal when he accused Pepys of selling secrets to Catholic France (which actually Scott himself had attempted to do), but the courts were themselves fretting over Catholic plotting and had condemned unfairly and executed "plotters" before Pepys had his turn. It was inherently difficult to fight a charge of treason, and the charges against Pepys were so broad that no alibi could pertain. Pepys also had to fight the charge of being a Catholic.

Pepys was able to demonstrate his innocence, and the case started to unravel even before it could come to trial, as Scott murdered a cab driver who wanted to be paid. Scott deftly skipped punishment for this offense, and somehow returned to the Caribbean and became Speaker of the Montserrat Assembly. Pepys's career and reputation revived, but he did not have the satisfaction of seeing Scott prosecuted for perjury, and never knew how Scott had actually been treasonably working for the French. This astonishing, almost epic, story of the sort of witch-hunting that is more familiar to us in other times and places is masterfully told. The father in the Long's authorship team has written historical novels, and the book conveys excitement, reading often like a convoluted spy novel (though no author could have invented Colonel Scott; he is too fantastic). Anyone familiar with the Pepys of the diaries, or with Restoration history, or with the hold that conspiracy theories can have upon a public and upon a government, will find this bizarre story fascinating.

Editorial Review:

It is 1679 and England is awash with suspicion. Fear of conspiracy and religious terrorism has provoked panic in politicians and a zealous reaction from the legal system. Everywhere, Catholic agents are plotting to overthrow the King--or so it is feared.

Now Samuel Pepys, Secretary of the Admiralty, finds himself in a position few people then or now would have expected--charged with treason and facing a show trial and execution. Imprisoned in the Tower of London and abandoned by the embattled King he loyally served, Pepys sets to work with customary brilliance investigating his mysterious accuser, Colonel John Scott, and uncovers a life riddled with ambition, forgery, treason and, ultimately, murder.

One part history, one part bone-rattling suspense, James Long and Ben Long brilliantly evoke a turbulent period in England's history and tell the forgotten story of the two most dangerous years in the life of the legendary diarist.

The Life of the Law: The People and Cases that Have Shaped Our Society, from King Alfred to Rodney King

Alfred H. Knight

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Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Law is intended to apply to common life and should be comprehensible to ordinary folk, but increasingly, it is not. The meaning of the law is becoming inaccessible, not only to the public but to the bar itself. In The Life of the Law, Alfred H. Knight outlines how some of the main contours of American law came to be as he recounts twenty-one stories beginning with Alfred the Great in the late ninth century and ending with the Rodney King trials in 1993.
Knight gives us a veritable "biography" of our legal tradition by focusing on the key individuals, and the pivotal cases that have helped to mold the law as we know it today. The Life of the Law finds a riveting story behind each historic decision and recounts the tales with both narrative flair and ironic wit.
The law is a living organism, constantly changing as new cases are decided, building on and modifying decisions that went before. Every case, no matter how lofty the principles involved, represents a human drama, a clash of competing desires. Alfred Knight's reflections on how twenty-one of these cases have left their mark on our society will inform and fascinate anyone interested in the law.

The Law of Athens

A. R. W. Harrison

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Editorial Review:

This is A.R.W. Harrison's fundamental work on the Athenian legal system, first published in 1968-71. A paperback edition containing a foreword and updated bibliography by D.M. MacDowell, this volume covers procedure

Judge Sewall's Apology: The Salem Witch Trials and the Forming of an American Conscience

Richard Francis

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Francis brings Massachusetts in the late 17th century to life 5 out of 5 stars.
13 of 15 people found this review helpful.

This is a well-researched and revealing account of the inner experience of a wealthy and powerful member of the Boston community. Largely based on Samuel Sewall's voluminous diaries, it covers his life from birth to death. It goes into detail about all sorts of events in Boston and Newbury.

The cover blurb ("The Story of a Good Man and an Evil Event") and the title inflate the importance of the notorious Salem witch trials in the book. The publisher can be forgiven for this exaggeration: scandals grab public attention just as much now as then. If the witchcraft "angle" induces more people to take a look at this interesting book, the exaggeration will prove worthwhile.

The witchcraft angle made me pick it up. I live scarcely a mile from the homestead of one of the women accused in that terrible crisis, and I am quite interested in what happened.

Sewall was a Puritan magistrate. They sat in a panel over various trials, including the witchcraft trials. The nuances of Sewall's interior experience of those trials are revealing about the late Puritan age's issues of gender, social standing, and economic class that underlay the witchcraft panic: it started among women in run-down rural Salem Village (now Danvers) and was prosecuted by men in wealthly Salem Town. Both Sewall and his biographer convey an understanding of these struggles straightforwardly without polemic. Francis just tells the stories, and resists the temptation to draw simple moral lessons from what happened. By doing this he cuts through the illusion that Puritan culture was morally simple-minded and brings it to life.

The people of the Puritan Commonwealth felt the presence of God looming over them with a clarity and intensity that is very difficult for us to understand in the 21st century. Those people thought their culture was destined to be the fulfillment God's divine Providence. Everything that happened, from earthquakes to the birth of infants to the attacks of Native Americans, they understood as expression of God's approval or disapproval of their personal conduct. Sewall was a diligent student of meteorology. He repented and apologized for his role in the witch trials partially because he saw signs of divine disapproval in the elements, and believed that the trials were a sign of collective delusion.

Sewall's accounts of trying to persuade his contemporaries of this position are especially revealing about the complexity of the American attitude towards official mistakes and misconduct. He worked hard to declare a day of public fasting and repentance five years after the trials. He tried to get Minister Cotton Mather (that ghoul!) to write a declaration for the fast day specifically acknowleging the collective evils committed during the trials, but Mather would not go beyond broad generalities.

Sewall's acceptance of personal responsibility for official misconduct is as American as roast turkey and apple pie. Unfortunately, so is Mather's refusal to accept it. This fine biography presents clearly that contradiction in American character in all its complexity.

Editorial Review:

The Salem witch hunt has entered our vocabulary as the very essence of injustice. Judge Samuel Sewall presided at these trials, passing harsh judgment on the condemned. But five years later, he publicly recanted his guilty verdicts and begged for forgiveness. This extraordinary act was a turning point not only for Sewall but also for America's nascent values and mores.

In Judge Sewall's Apology, Richard Francis draws on the judge's own diaries, which enables us to see the early colonists not as grim ideologues, but as flesh-and-blood idealists, striving for a new society while coming to terms with the desires and imperfections of ordinary life. Through this unsung hero of the American conscience -- a Puritan, an antislavery agitator, a defender of Native American rights, and a Utopian theorist -- we are granted a fresh perspective on a familiar drama.