Law’s Political Foundations

Law's Political Foundations: Rivers, Rifles, Rice and Religion explains the development of the two basic systems of public and private law and their historical transformations. Examining the historical development of law in China, Japan, Western Europe, and Hispanic America, Haley argues that law is a product, rather than a constitutive element, of political systems. Four narrative chapters commence with the development of Chinese legal tradition as a public law order in which regulatory and pen