Customer Reviews

Roman Law in European History

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Stein is an obvious expert on the subject matter and explained things deftly but briefly. He covered 2500 years of very eventful, complicated, and important intellectual, political, and legal history and millions of pages of primary material in 137 pages. It should be obvious that such a book can at best be only a primer and at worst only confusing.

I found the book to be a lot of both. The book is fascinating in what it tells and its brevity whets one's appetite for more. There are extensive suggestions for further reading. However, the myriad of names, terms, and dates is simply too much even for a primer. Stein cannot avoid mentioning this or that minor figure or anonymous text. I imagine the idea of such a brief introduction to such an immense subject is to gain a wide audience and give the student a quick and shallow overview. That is a laudable idea, but 137 pages is just not enough. The book's impact is seriously weakened by too much that is only mentioned without proper explanation. Confusion results from such a wave of names and dates with too little to help one appreciate them. The book's size should at least be doubled. The subject simply cannot be properly dealt with in so little space.

This book is very synthetic. A very good summary about Roman Law for someone that has little time and wants accurate information.

I don't recommend it if you are looking for a very detailed study of Roman Law.

On the other hand, if you already know a lot about it and want to read a short book that helps you organize many different ideas and that enables you to remember things that we naturally forget after time, this seems to be a great book.

If you don't know anything about Roman Law, it is also recommended. You can read this book in a day or two and gain a lot of vital information, in order to deepen your studies later. The author doesn't assume, in any moment during the book, that the reader already knows what he is explaining.