The Rule of Laws: A 4,000-Year Quest to Order the World

by Fernanda Pirie

Overview

From ancient Mesopotamia to today, the epic story of how humans have used laws to forge civilizations  
 
Rulers throughout history have used laws to impose order. But laws were not simply instruments of power and social control. They also offered ordinary people a way to express their diverse visions for a better world.  
 
In The Rule of Laws, Oxford scholar Fernanda Pirie traces the rise and fall of the sophisticated legal systems underpinning ancient empires and religious traditions, while also showing how common people—tribal assemblies, merchants, farmers—called on laws to define their communities, regulate trade, and build civilizations. Although legal principles originating in Western Europe now seem to dominate the globe, the variety of the world’s laws has long been almost as great as the variety of its societies. What truly unites human beings, Pirie argues, is our very faith that laws can produce justice, combat oppression, and create order from chaos.  

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781541617940
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	11/09/2021
Pages:	576
Sales rank:	632,483
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.90(d)

About the Author

Fernanda Pirie is professor of the anthropology of law at the University of Oxford. She is the author of The Anthropology of Law and has conducted fieldwork in the mountains of Ladakh and the grasslands of eastern Tibet. She previously spent almost a decade practicing as a barrister at the London bar. She lives in Oxford, UK.  

Editorial Reviews

10/22/2021

Where do laws come from? How long have law systems existed? Pirie (law, Oxford Univ.; Legal Ideology in Tibet) explores these questions, providing a global view of the development of legal systems over the past 4,000 years. The book begins in ancient Mesopotamia and navigates to the modern world. Pirie focuses on the far-reaching and lasting influence of three major cultures; those of Mesopotamia, China, and India. She argues that these civilizations developed the kernels from which future societies often shaped or reinterpreted their systems. For instance, Hammurabi codified law in the Babylon of the 18th century BCE; these codes began a tradition of written law and also set precedents that appear again in biblical tradition, the author explains. A fascinating discussion includes the European landscape after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, when the Germanic nations re-established or integrated Roman law into local practices. There is no "legalese" here: rather, the text is very easy to read, and Pirie is gifted in explaining complex issues in simple terms. Extensive notes provide guides for further reading. VERDICT An intriguing synthesis of the history of global legal codes and their origins.—Jeffrey Meyer, Iowa Wesleyan Univ.

Library Journal

2021-09-28
A worldwide survey of legal history that draws on a vast repertoire of texts and traditions.

Pirie, a professor of the anthropology of law at Oxford and a specialist in Tibetan culture, notes that even among the nomadic peoples of the high Himalayan plateau, legal codes have developed to determine who can use a given patch of grassland and speak on behalf of their band. “Small communities the world over have made laws to regulate internal affairs and maintain a sense of distinctiveness and autonomy,” writes the author. Still, for all the esoteric legal traditions out there, such as the rules of beekeeping codified by Irish monks, societies tend to develop most of their fixed rules at the state level, and as Pirie notes early on, local traditions have tended to give way to international orders: “The national legal systems now found throughout the world are almost all modeled on those developed by European nations in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.” In an agile though somewhat overlong history, Pirie begins with Hammurabi, whose legal code expanded beyond “pragmatic and mundane rules” to become a body of laws that justified state power but also gave people an ordered place in Babylonian society and attendant rights. The author argues convincingly that the best legal traditions are those in which rights and responsibilities are reciprocal, helping people, in the case of that Mesopotamian legal code, “navigate complex social relations in a society divided into different social classes and professions.” Subsequent legal developments have codified what constitutes fair trade, what legal rights the citizens of a state can expect to enjoy, and the like. In the modern era, Pirie concludes, international laws continue to proliferate, often surrounding highly complex issues such as how to regulate the internet, if at all.

A valuable study for students of the law and its evolution over the millennia.

Kirkus Reviews

In the course of her survey, Ms. Pirie, a professor of legal anthropology at Oxford, takes us on many an intriguing legal byway… [An] exceptionally rich narrative…”—Wall Street Journal

"In this panoramic history, Pirie tells the story of the rise and fall of systems of law across the civilizations, empires, and societies of the ancient and modern world."—Foreign Affairs

"An ambitious account of the rise and fall of the world's great legal systems...richly informative and consistently thought-provoking...Fernanda Pirie's work will command, and deserve, a wide readership."—Times Literary Supplement

“[Pirie’s] collection of stories offers a comprehensive insight into how civilizations were founded and ruled… Furthermore, it bolsters our appreciation for the laws at our civilization’s foundational structure.”—Roanoke Times

“A valuable study for students of the law and its evolution over the millennia."—Kirkus Reviews

“An intriguing synthesis of the history of global legal codes and their origins.”—Library Journal

"The Rule of Laws is a fascinating, comprehensive study that forces us to think again about what law is, and why it matters. Far from being a dry set of rules, Fernanda Pirie argues, law is nothing less than a way of creating order and civilization. For those who want to understand why human society has emerged as it has, this is essential reading.”—Rana Mitter, University of Oxford

"The Rule of Laws offers a pathbreaking and stimulating account of how societies across different regions and epochs drew upon secular, sacred, and scholarly traditions to create laws that organized the lives of their citizens. Pirie leads readers across five millennia to show the diverse and sophisticated legal systems developed in states across Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas before explaining how the European-derived legal structures of our time achieved a rather unlikely and historically anomalous global dominance. This expansive narrative challenges what we think we know about legal history and the assumptions we make about law’s future.”—Edward J. Watts, author of Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell into Tyranny

From the Publisher