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The Invention of Law in the West
Law is a specific form of social regulation distinct from religion, ethics, and even politics, and endowed with a strong and autonomous rationality. Its invention, a crucial aspect of Western history, took place in ancient Rome. Aldo Schiavone, a world-renowned classicist, reconstructs this development with clear-eyed passion, following its course over the centuries, setting out from the earliest origins and moving up to the threshold of Late Antiquity. The invention of Western law occurred against the backdrop of the Roman Empire's gradual consolidationâe"an age of unprecedented accumulation of power which transformed an archaic predisposition to ritual into an unrivaled technology for the control of human dealings. Schiavone offers us a closely reasoned interpretation that returns us to the primal origins of Western legal machinery and the discourse that was constructed around itâe"formalism, the pretense of neutrality, the relationship with political power. This is a landmark work of scholarship whose influence will be felt by classicists, historians, and legal scholars for decades.
The End of the Past
THIS SEARCHING INTERPRETATION of past and present addresses fundamental questions about the fall of the Roman Empire. Why did ancient culture, once so strong and rich, come to an end? Was it destroyed by weaknesses inherent in its nature? Or were mistakes made that could have been avoided -- was there a point at which Greco-Roman society took a wrong turn? And in what ways is modern society different? Western history is split into two discontinuous eras, Aldo Schiavone tells us: the ancient world was fundamentally different from the modern one. He locates the essential difference in a series of economic factors: a slave-based economy, relative lack of mechanization and technology, the dominance of agriculture over urban industry. Also crucial are aspects of the ancient mentality: disdain for manual work, a preference for transcending (rather than transforming) nature, a basic belief in the permanence of limits. Schiavone's lively and provocative examination of the ancient world, "the eternal theater of history and power", offers a stimulating opportunity to view modern society in light of the experience of our forebears.
The Pursuit of Equality in the West
Do democratic citizens have equal right to rule? Is it enough that they have equal standing before the law, or must there also be economic and social equality? Aldo Schiavone traces these questions and their diverse answers from the ancient world to the present and urges a new course to rescue democracies now suffering from excesses of inequality.
