Randall Lesaffer, EUROPEAN LEGAL HISTORY: A CULTURAL AND POLITICAL PERSPECTIVE Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (www.cambridge.org), 2009. ix + 549 pp. ISBN 9780521701778 (pb). £27.99. ISBN 9780521877985 (hb). £65.

AuthorPaul J du Plessis
DOI10.3366/elr.2011.0007
Published date01 January 2011
Date01 January 2011
Pages144-145

Lesaffer's interesting new book on the history of legal development in Europe is a novel take on an old idea. The main aim of the book, according to its author (viii), is to provide an account of the external history of legal development in Europe for those who do not have a detailed knowledge of general European history. In this respect, it continues a long and illustrious tradition started by the German jurist Savigny whose monumental Geschichte des römischen Rechts im Mittelalter (1815–1831) is commonly regarded as the first systematic account of European legal history as an academic discipline. For much of the period following the publication of Savigny's work until roughly after the Second World War, scholarship in this subject was dominated by grand narratives which, as a rule, downplayed legal pluralism in favour of themes such as unity and the continuity of the Western legal tradition. It was only after the Second World...

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