About This Book
Well before states, literacy, or legal systems, there were commerce and trade, which are found in all societies irrespective of politics, social norms or ideologies. Athenian landowners, Roman senators and Qing mandarins screened their participation in commerce and trade. Legal and informal institutions were developed to secure persons and property, resolve commercial disputes, raise capital and share risk, promote fair dealing, regulate agents and gather market information. Law and Commerce in Pre-Industrial Societies examines commerce, its participants and these institutions through the lens of nine pre-industrial societies: Hunter/gatherers, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Athens, Rome, the early Islamic world, medieval Europe, medieval Southern India and early Qing China. The book provides historical perspective to contemporary debates about the relationship between commerce and law, public ordering versus privately created systems of law, the rule of law and the relative merits of courts versus merchant networks to resolve disputes.
About the Author Barry Hawk is the current Director of the Fordham Competition Law Institute; a former professor of law at Fordham Law School; and a former partner with Skadden Arps LLP. He holds a certificat from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques, University of Paris; an A .B. from Fordham College; and an LL.B. from the University of Virginia School of Law. He is the author and editor of numerous books and articles on international trade and competition law, including Anti-cartel Engorcement Worldwide (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2009) and United States, Common Market and International Antitrust (2d ed. 1996).
Link to publisher: http://www.brill.com/products/book/law-and-commerce-pre-industrial-societies