Legal Systems Very Different from Ours

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 decentralized. The book’s underlying assumption is that all human societies face the same problems, deal with them in an interesting variety of different ways, are all the work of grown-ups, hence should all be taken seriously. It ends with a chapter on features of past legal systems that a modern system might want to borrow.

• The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism
• Stubborn Attachments: A Vision for a Society of Free, Prosperous, and Responsible Individuals
• Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration
• The Revolt of The Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium
• Big Business: A Love Letter to an American Anti-Hero
• The New Right: A Journey to the Fringe of American Politics
• Governing Least: A New England Libertarianism (Oxford Political Philosophy)
• An Economist Walks into a Brothel: And Other Unexpected Places to Understand Risk
• Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration
• Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed