Interesting but racist and superficial

The majority of this book was enjoyable and an introduction to a range of legal systems. In that sense, it was thought provoking. However, the author is a nonspecialist and this definitely affects the quality of the book. Additionally, the book is marred by the author's racism (see second last paragraph below).

The book is a survey of surveys - he looks at about ten legal systems, but the information for each is based primarily on one or two books. As such, he does not give much accounting to different interpretations, etc. Being passably familiar with one of the systems he describes, I was able to identify a number of questionable assertions and important omissions. To some extent this is to be expected in a book of this nature, but it limits the trustworthiness of other chapters.

Some will recognise the author - David Friedman is the son of the (in)famous right wing economist Milton and is a prominent right libertarian. This affects his handling of the subject matter in a few ways. On one hand, his scepticism of authority and the police leads him to be more critical of our legal system than I might have expected. This is helpful when doing a comparative analysis, as it discourages starry eyes idealism. However, it also leads him to make some bizarre choices. Repeatedly, Friedman invokes behavioural economics to explain legal phenomena. It's not that there is no place for such analysis, but the problem is that this is the only real analysis which he does and he does not contextualise these claims with other frameworks or even much historical evidence. This is a book by a layman, not a social scientist or a historian.

Most troubling is the treatment of Romani law. Put frankly, Friedman engages in racist stereotyping of Roma/Romani people. Worse, he uses these stereotypes in an attempt to explain features of Romani law. In addition, the book makes repeated use of the G slur to describe populations which reject that label as racist, stereotyped, and prejudiced. Overall it is highly troubling.

In short, the book was an interesting but very limited overview of a number of legal systems. If you'd like to learn about specific ones, I highly recommend you to search out better resources. The author's analysis leaves much to be desired, and his racism is unpleasant to say the least. The only reason I would recommend this book is because I have not come across another that fills this niche. Friedman does so, but not very well.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

Interesting book, poor audio quality

I enjoyed the book. But the audio was not edited properly. The narrator makes mistakes and repeats himself but these have not been edited out. The audio quality itself is fairly poor.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!