European Law: Past and Future – Unity and Diversity over Two Thousand Years

Author: R.C. van Caenegem, translated by Shi Daixiao
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-04-01
Features: This book does not intend to provide a comprehensive examination of the history of European law; instead, it presents several topics that are likely to attract my students' interest. It also aims to pique the interest of a broader public who believe that the future of European law, in fact, holds significant importance for the world. Some of these topics are essentially historical, such as the origins of the 19th-century German Civil Code; others are comparative, such as the contrast between common law and civil law; and others address current issues, such as the interpretation of the U.S. Constitution (this is a prominent example of a legal classic literature issue). Finally, the future of European law has been widely studied, and the question of whether a truly universal legal science is possible in a unified 21st-century Europe once raised takes us back to the days when the ius commune was the common science and language of legal scholars across the regions—from Aberdeen to Naples, from Krakow, a southern Polish city and the capital of the Krakow Voivodeship.