本书对盎格鲁—美利坚法律的历史全面鸟瞰，条分缕析，进行了清晰扼要的论述，是了解美国法律史很好的入门读物。本书第一部分简介普通法背景，主要叙述制度层面的法庭、陪审团及律师；第二部分分述各主要法律渊源；第三部分分述各主要法律渊源；第三部分讲述普通法中最主要的三个部门法领域——不动产、侵权和合同——的演进；最后一部分则是关于普通法的法典化，在法律与商业交互作用的背景下分析票据和商业组织的法律流变。

PREFACE

TABLE OF CASES

PART Ⅰ THE BACKGROUND OF THE COMMON LAW

PART Ⅱ SOURCES OF LAW

PART Ⅲ THE COMMON LAW IN ACTION

PART Ⅳ THE COMMON LAW CODIFIED

INDEX

PART Ⅰ THE BACKGROUND OF THE COMMON LAW

CHAPTER Ⅰ WHAT LEGAL HISTORY IS ABOUT

The law—as was said with resignation of the poor—is always with us. Some twenty centuries before the Christian Era, Hammurabi promulgated his famous code for Babylonia. The Mosaic code of the Israelites is only eight centuries younger. Even before those ancient codes, practices and customs were the equivalent of law, if not true law in the modern sense, among primitive people. Some primitive societies in our own day are still controlled by such amorphous law.

Every legal rule, idea, or norm had its own genesis. All started somewhere and had some cause. Some came about by chance, and thought gave birth to others. Some stemmed from one mans weakness; others were the fruit of strength. Some still echo with the noise of ancient struggles; while passing time and change of custom formed some others.

Today, as ever, law pervades our lives. This is its nature, because law guides our relations with each other. It tells us pay when, by our fault or not, we injure others; it says what we must do if we want our promises to be enforced as contracts; it makes us pay our taxes; it requires us to take out licenses in business, to get married, and even to practice such a pastoral pastime as the art of angling.

腓特烈·G·坎平：宾夕法尼亚大学沃顿商学院教授。