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Legal Systems Very Different from Ours
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This book looks at thirteen different legal systems, ranging from Imperial China to modern Amish: how they worked, what problems they faced, how they dealt with them. Some chapters deal with a single legal system, others with topics relevant to several, such as problems with law based on divine revelation or how systems work in which law enforcement is private and decentra
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Kindle Edition, 366 pages
Published
January 14th 2019
(first published January 9th 2019)
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Sep 07, 2019
Petra on hiatus is bored with hospital life
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
1. Chinese Law - the entry of people into government service sounds insane. They have to study all sorts of subjects and pass with good grades, but none of the subjects have the slightest thing to do with government or anything related. But it's the same as our own system. People go into government having a degree in, say, Philosophy and then a Masters in Medieval English Literature. The author says there are better ways of finding out if people are capable of studying and understanding concepts
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Jun 18, 2019
Christopher Hudson Jr.
rated it
liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
criminal-justice,
history
As expected, David Friedman details lot of interesting information on various unique legal systems and customs. His comprehension of such a wide, and often bizarre, subject matter is truly impressive. Where the book suffers is it's readability. There's no consistent chapter format that would make it easy for the reader to process and compare cultures, and many chapters seem to drag along with uninteresting information. The two most coherent chapters happen to be the two not written by Friedman (
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Very interesting, but frequently dry, and the big ideas can be summarized in shorter form. If you think you might want to read it, start with this review, and see if the subject interests you enough to keep going.
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Very interesting subject matter, but the book is very rough around the edges - needed better editing I think.
I've classified this book into a variety of shelves. To be fair to the author and the book, it doesn't really fit in any of them. Yes, this book explores societies, policy, psychology and even economics to a small extent, but it doesn't really focus entirely on any one. A book dealing with legal systems rarely does. Ideally I should have classified this into a "legal" bookshelf, but I don't want that shelf on my profile and I don't think it fits there either.
This book explores the legal systems ...more
This book explores the legal systems ...more
Feb 18, 2020
Rosie
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Recommended to Rosie by:
A friend suggested it. Also, Scott Alexander reviewed it.
Quality of the writing: 5
Quality of the content/organisation/research: 5
Impact on my perspective: 5
Personal resonance: 5
Rereading potential: 5
Overall score: 5
The reason I read it: Researching pirate law.
Context of reading: I have also been listening to the series of original lectures from the course David Friedman based this book on. (By the way, he's Milton Friedman's son.)
Review:
All societies face versions of the same problems. How to both deter and punish crime. How to handle groups within s ...more
Quality of the content/organisation/research: 5
Impact on my perspective: 5
Personal resonance: 5
Rereading potential: 5
Overall score: 5
The reason I read it: Researching pirate law.
Context of reading: I have also been listening to the series of original lectures from the course David Friedman based this book on. (By the way, he's Milton Friedman's son.)
Review:
All societies face versions of the same problems. How to both deter and punish crime. How to handle groups within s ...more
An older draft is found here:
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academi...
Professor Friedman has kindly informed me that the finished book has recently been published and is available from various internet booksellers. ...more
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academi...
Professor Friedman has kindly informed me that the finished book has recently been published and is available from various internet booksellers. ...more
Most history books will teach you about the standard aspects of a culture: it's kings and it's wars. Seldom do we get real insight into how a culture actually functioned. Having lived in England my entire life, I was still largely oblivios to much of what was within the chapter on the legal system of 19th century england. When thinking about political/legal/systems it can be very hard to imagine how a system could function differently: this book really helps solve that.
The chapter about 19th cen ...more
The chapter about 19th cen ...more
An interesting book!
But. Not well written: it was dry, and often not clear.
It seems to me that there is organising left to be done.
I woul like to see a table that organises, for each legal system; who is the juror, who is the judge, who is the prosecutor, ... (and what are their incentives / costs).
Also, I think it might be possible (once these legal systems are more formally characterised) to trace the evolution of legal systems (much like language).
What problem does a legal system solve?
A lo ...more
But. Not well written: it was dry, and often not clear.
It seems to me that there is organising left to be done.
I woul like to see a table that organises, for each legal system; who is the juror, who is the judge, who is the prosecutor, ... (and what are their incentives / costs).
Also, I think it might be possible (once these legal systems are more formally characterised) to trace the evolution of legal systems (much like language).
What problem does a legal system solve?
A lo ...more
A single book comparing and contrasting legal system in multiple countries, as well as different centuries, is going to be shallow in its treatment of any particular subject.
The author relies on one or two works as the basis for each chapter. Several chapters highlight legal systems that lack detailed histories or definitive scholarly works. This makes their treatment a bit speculative.
I felt several chapters relied too heavily on stereotypes.
The author evaluates each system using an economic ef ...more
The author relies on one or two works as the basis for each chapter. Several chapters highlight legal systems that lack detailed histories or definitive scholarly works. This makes their treatment a bit speculative.
I felt several chapters relied too heavily on stereotypes.
The author evaluates each system using an economic ef ...more
An amazing book about a variety of legal systems from different places and times, and analysis by a brilliant professor of how they deal with certain universal challenges. Especially interesting when he proposes using some of these elements to solve problems in our current legal system - crimes committed by the government, malicious prosecution, certain crimes and torts which are expensive to prosecute, and patent trolls.
One area he didn’t touch much is the ability to use technology to make some ...more
One area he didn’t touch much is the ability to use technology to make some ...more
Friedman covers the legal systems of 13 societies. Each is covered quickly, focusing often on the incentives that allowed the system to work. As the introduction says:
"The underlying idea is simple. All human societies face about the same problems. They deal with them in an interesting variety of different ways. All of them are grownups—there is little reason to believe that the people who created the legal systems of Imperial China, Periclean Athens, or saga-period Iceland were any less intelli ...more
"The underlying idea is simple. All human societies face about the same problems. They deal with them in an interesting variety of different ways. All of them are grownups—there is little reason to believe that the people who created the legal systems of Imperial China, Periclean Athens, or saga-period Iceland were any less intelli ...more
Really fascinating look at how different societies have worked. I read a lot of sci-fi because I love imagining other ways to configure society. This book does the same thing, with the added benefit of looking at how people faced realistic challenges and either surmounted them or failed.
Friedman takes a slightly more abstract view of "legal systems" than modern readers would think of, a priori. In his view, a legal system is anything that lets people resolve disputes without violence. He looks a ...more
Friedman takes a slightly more abstract view of "legal systems" than modern readers would think of, a priori. In his view, a legal system is anything that lets people resolve disputes without violence. He looks a ...more
Not really sure what to say about this book. In one sense, I think this book should be much larger since there are many more legal systems to discuss. On the other hand, it's a bit dry to just go through cultures one by one. I think this book has great content, it the evidence behind the theory in the author's other work "machinery of freedom". Yet there is very little exposition and context of the theory in this book. This may not be a problem as such but without a theory, the reader is often l
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An interesting delve into a handful of systems that work in ways ranging from odd to horrific to modern sensibilities. A bit dry in places and less complete than I'd like in others, it's nevertheless a fascinating read if you've got an interest in niche topics
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I found the portion of this book that I read (about 60 pages), so boring I decided to discard the book and move on. I rarely give up on books. But this read like a cross between a government form and the worst-written history book from the 1950s. I can’t recommend it and have no plan to revisit it.
A summary of this book doesn't make sense since this book is a summary of legal systems across space and time. From the Plains Indians to the Gypsies and Saga era Iceland.
With the fool heartedness in mind… This book is a dozen odd case studies of legal systems different from ours - however it is also a primer to different cultures. Like looking at Anabaptist (Amish -> Mennonite) legal practices without a little knowledge of their culture wouldn't make any sense. In many chapters the culture int ...more
With the fool heartedness in mind… This book is a dozen odd case studies of legal systems different from ours - however it is also a primer to different cultures. Like looking at Anabaptist (Amish -> Mennonite) legal practices without a little knowledge of their culture wouldn't make any sense. In many chapters the culture int ...more
A very dry start but worth plodding through. Friedman takes a deep dive into many differing legal systems from across history and across the globe. I felt he was a bit overly focused on English Common Law but that is just likely because there are so very many sources.
The final third is where things get interesting. Friedman first does a more direct compare and contrast between elements of differing legal systems and also contrasting them to modern (mostly North American) systems. He also takes s ...more
The final third is where things get interesting. Friedman first does a more direct compare and contrast between elements of differing legal systems and also contrasting them to modern (mostly North American) systems. He also takes s ...more
Did not finish. I LOVE the premise of this book, and really enjoyed the exploration of other cultures and ways of thinking about law. My main complaint is that it felt far too verbose for my tastes. I was most interested in understanding the key concepts of the various legal systems and their implications, and instead this dove deep into the details. I found it difficult to skim and get the key points that way, and ultimately gave up
Aug 28, 2021
Richelle Wagner
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
must-read-and-re-read
I loved this book, it is exactly the kind of thing that I like. It is very informative and goes through many different legal systems, including the Amish, Jews, Gypsies, Muslims, etc. It gave a concise overview of each and looked at pros and cons of each. I will have to come back to this and read it again in a few years, I'm sure there some things I could pick up from a second read.
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I picked this up just because of good word of mouth and found it fascinating. It has extreme relevance to the emerging mechanisms for the interaction of private and government actors in space, where the lack of a sovereign authority will encourage more 'private' dispute resolution. Many useful historical examples have features to serve as inspiration.
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Fun read. Sometimes gets repetitive. I found learning about how multiple law codes coexist in one area very interesting, along with the more bizarre law codes (Somali, Roma) that exhibit cultural relativism in its fullest.
good for worldbuilding
Jun 01, 2020
alzabo
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
erudition,
social-commentary
beautiful examples across cultures and history of the logic of law. great stuff.
3 stars — Some chapters were fascinating and others were so dry that I eventually gave up after several re-reads and skimmed. 😬
An great detailed overview of a number of justice systems quite different than ours and description of how they relate to and solve a common set of goals
9/10
Incredibly interesting.
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I am an academic economist currently employed as a law professor, although I have never taken a course for credit in either field. My specialty, insofar as I have one, is the economic analysis of law, the subject of my book _Law's Order_.
In recent years I have created and taught two new law school seminars at Santa Clara University. One was on legal issues of the 21st century, dis ...more
I am an academic economist currently employed as a law professor, although I have never taken a course for credit in either field. My specialty, insofar as I have one, is the economic analysis of law, the subject of my book _Law's Order_.
In recent years I have created and taught two new law school seminars at Santa Clara University. One was on legal issues of the 21st century, dis ...more
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“In eighteenth-century England a system of professional police and prosecutors, government paid and appointed, was viewed as potentially tyrannical—worse still, French.”
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“That illustrates my rule of thumb for reading history: View with suspicion any anecdote that makes a good enough story to have survived on its literary merits.”
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