Lawyers and Savages

Legal primitivism was a complex phenomenon that combined the study of early European legal traditions with studies of the legal customs of indigenous peoples. Lawyers and Savages: Ancient History and Legal Realism in the Making of Legal Anthropology explores the rise and fall of legal primitivism, and its connection to the colonial encounter. Through examples such as blood feuds, communalism, ordeals, ritual formalism and polygamy, this book traces the intellectual revolution of legal anthropolo