The Story of Law

By John Maxcy Zane

Book Overview

The Story of Law is a comprehensive book written by John Maxcy Zane, providing an in-depth exploration of the history and evolution of law. The book is divided into two parts, with the first part focusing on the development of law from ancient times to the present day. It covers the legal systems of various civilizations, including ancient Greece, Rome, and China, as well as the influence of religion on law.The second part of the book delves into the different branches of law, such as criminal law, civil law, and constitutional law. It examines the principles and concepts that govern these areas of law, and how they have evolved over time. The author also discusses the role of law in society and its impact on individuals and communities.Throughout the book, Zane provides numerous examples and case studies to illustrate his points, making it a highly accessible and engaging read for anyone interested in law and legal history. The Story of Law is an essential resource for law students, legal professionals, and anyone interested in understanding the origins and development of law.1927. The story of the law written for the benefit of the general reader. Contents: The Physical Basis of Law; Law Among Primordial Men; The Aryan Law; Babylonian Law; The Jewish Law; Law Among the Greeks; A Greek Lawsuit; Greek Philosophy of Law; The Roman Creation of Modern Law; The Greek Compilation of Roman Law; Medieval Law in Europe; The Origins of English Law; English Law-Righteous and Unrighteous; Reconciliation of the English Systems of Law; The Absolute Reign of Law; and International Law.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1162807555
• ISBN13: 9781162807553
• Release Date: September 2010
• Publisher: Kessinger Publishing, LLC
• Length: 514 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Law for citizens of a commercial republic.

This is one of the series of high quality, low cost reprints of legal and historical classics published by The Liberty Press. It was originally published in 1927, and first reprinted by Liberty in 1992. Zane was a successful commercial attorney who also had a strong interest in the history of the law. This book was an ambitious undertaking, an outline of the development of the Western legal tradition from prehistoric to modern times. It is no doubt regarded as being hopelessly out of date by modern legal scholars, but I haven't seen anything better or more recent for the general reader. Zane's style is for the most part simple and straightforward, understandable by the reader of average education and literacy. At the time he wrote this book, in the mid-1920's, prosperity had come for the first time to millions of Americans, and television had not yet been invented. Reading was a major middle-class activity, the Book of the Month Club and Readers Digest were becoming household names, and Zane's book was aimed at that newly educated audience. Zane has a couple of hobby-horses, one being that commercial law is the foundation of civilization, and he tends to ride it a bit excessively. He may be correct in his opinion, given that commerce is the foundation of the prosperity and dominance of our modern "Western" civilization, but his own professional bias is also clearly at work. He was also fascinated by the development of the English court system and legal profession. His description of those institutions in the Late Middle Ages is a bit tedious, with more detail than the average general reader is likely to find interesting. He is very opinionated, which I find entertaining, but this may not be to everyone's taste. He believed that law evolved organically out of the fact that human beings were creatures who lived in groups and therefore needed to regulate their behavior towards each other in order to survive and reproduce. Law, for Zane, is a human creation, deeply based on custom and biology, not on divine will or the theories of judges. His very informative discussion of the origins of the concept of "natural law" illustrates this belief. He has little good to say about the laws of the ancient Greeks, attributes most of what we now call law, including the English Common Law, to the Romans. He also has little regard for the Anglo-Saxons, or Justice Coke, or the jury system. His chapter on the development of the American legal system is titled "The Absolute Reign of Law", which states his view of the case very clearly. He spends much time in this chapter discussing the impeachment of Justice Samuel Chase in 1804, which he believes permanently set the shape of the American political system. (It should be noted that Justice Rehnquist wrote a history of the Chase impeachment in 1992.) His chapter on international law includes a long discussion of the Alabama Claims tribunal. He had a jaundiced view of the American attitude t

enjoyable

Reading this book is an cheerful thing.it is fit for all kinds of people.