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47 of 48 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Two books in one, August 5, 2002
This review is from: Law and Revolution, The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition (Paperback)
At its core, the thesis of the book is this: that the origins of the western legal tradition can be traced to a "Papal Revolution" in the 11th and 12th centuries. The Papal Revolution, in essence, was an effort by scholars like Peter Abelard, Gratian, and Bracton, who applied an ancient Greek method of abstraction and analysis to the remnants of Roman law dating back to Justinian five or six centuries earlier. The Greek philosophers never gave much regard to the laws of their city-states, and the Romans wilfully avoided applying any level of abstraction to their laws, so when the 11th and 12th century scholars applied the Greek analytical method to the Roman law, something truly unique was born. But that's only the beginning. Berman goes to great lengths to show that the "Papal Revolution", though it may not have taken place as abruptly as the other later revolutions in the western world, was no less an epochal event. The first half of the book traces how the canon law and papal power first separated itself from the secular law of the territorial kingdoms, and then asserted its own kind of jurisdiction. Although the level of detail sometimes distracts from Berman's main point, the organization of the chapters in Part I are careful to build up the story of how the need to gloss the old Roman texts led to a "science of law" in itself, and then to competing jurisdictions between emperor and pope, and how the development of the law led to the resolution of these conflicts. Part I ends with a short chapter on the personal conflict between King Henry II of England and Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, which Berman proposes is the personification of the competing interests of the papacy and the secular authority. Part II takes a different organizational approach in describing how the secular law developed at the same time. Rather than a chronological buildup, part II is a subject-matter survey of the different clusters of secular authority, and the body of law that bound them together. (For example, urban law of certain cities that got franchised to other towns and cities, mercantile law that was largely self-governed by the merchants, royal law that up until then had not developed in itself.) Law students and lawyers will recognize some of the terminology that gets introduced as a part of the discussion, and it can provide some greater perspective on where and why these western legal concepts came from. But also, as emphasized in the introduction and conclusion, Berman proposes that the western tradition he describes is in a state of crisis. This book was published in 1984, at a time before Marxism's decline as living academic thought. In this light, the worries that legal history might be wrongfully described in only economic terms, or in terms of other historical "forces", may not be as pronounced. However, another concern -- that the western legal tradition is losing its structural integrity, or that the law is less and less founded upon a coherent foundation of reason -- still has relevance today. In that sense, the book is worth reading both for historical and for present-day purposes.
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33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Layman's View, December 23, 2000
This review is from: Law and Revolution, The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition (Paperback)
As an average US citizen without any legal training or education, I've always found the subject of law a bit overwhelming and intimidating to grasp. It is so primary in our "nation of laws" that law permeates almost every aspect of our lives. How does one even begin to get a handle on it? I asked a law professor if he had any recommendations, and he recommended "Law and Revolution", by Harold Berman. This book finally lifted the veil for me, on what law is in our society, and how it got that way. It portrays a huge panorama of the evolution of law from primitive trials by fire, to trials by church and by competing states, to our modern systems. I learned, for example, that one of the first and enduring reasons for criminal law is to prevent persons from retaliating in person against criminals. Back a thousand years ago, it was common for families to take revenge into their own hands, and the civil systems tried many ways to control this "need" to avenge, and modern criminal law grew out of those efforts. Another interesting learning was that the early church spent enormous efforts learning how to intellectually "reconcile" conflicting church dogmas, devising such techniques as "thesis, "anti-thesis" and "synthesis". Then, later, these highly refined intellectual skills were turned to the extremely complicated and confusing arena of law, and helped to gradually sort out and codify successful ways of acting civilized as a society. Ok, you get the idea. Just a few tidbits from this vast book. A wonderful reference for the average citizen who wants to understand the role of law in our lives. It stands as one of the top ten books I've ever read! Roger Matthews
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22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A fascinating book., April 10, 2000
This review is from: Law and Revolution, The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition (Paperback)
"Law and Revolution" is a tour de force and a lasting contribution to legal scholarship. Scholars fortunate enough to be familiar with Berman's earlier book, "The Nature and Functions of Law," will immediately recognize Berman's approach to law as a social institution; an approach that is firmly grounded in history and experience, but which also takes into consideration the realm of ideas. Berman's thesis is that the Western legal tradition was created by a series of social "revolutions," and that we are currently at the end of an era and experiencing a "revolution" that will transform our legal institutions. "Law and Revolution" is Berman's attempt to trace the development of our Western legal tradition in order to glean knowledge that will be useful to us in weathering the storm of the current "revolution" in our legal institutions. As Berman states, "So I have had to view the Western tradition of law and legality, of order and justice, in a very long historical perspective, from its beginnings, in order to find a way out of our present predicament." The result of Berman's approach is a long book-Berman simply could not achieve his purpose in a brief essay. Berman writes well, however, and he manages always to fascinate the reader. Berman's depth of thought is as beautiful as it is rare. This is a book to read, to ponder, and to re-read. It deserves a broad audience both inside and outside legal academia.
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