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Review Of Disputes And Settlements: Law And Human Relations In The West, By J. Bossy, Editor., William I. Miller

Reviews

Evans-Pritchard probably knew he was exaggerating, but not being able to resist the chance to repay a gift in kind, he reversed Maitland's dictum and claimed that history must choose between being social anthropology or being nothing. If we substitute "tedious" for "nothing" we would have a truer statement. Legal history, if not quite heeding Evans-Pritchard, has in the past decade begun to learn some lessons from legal anthropology and the sociology of law. Studies of bureaucratic development, forms of action, formulae and writs, while still flourishing in the hands of several brilliant practitioners, are tending to give way slowly, …