A History of Private Law in Europe

In this book Franz Wieacker tells how legal thinking, writing and teaching started in Europe and how it developed. As Reinhard Zimmermann's foreword shows, Wieacker's way of telling the history of European legal thought from its origins in medieval Bologna down to the present day and of elucidating the intellectual conditions for its development is a stunning achievement.

One of the great strengths of the book lies in its demonstration of the constant interaction between the thinking of lawyers and the general philosophical ideas of their time. It is hardly surprising that so ambitious and erudite a work should have become a classic since 1952, when it was first published in German. Now Tony Weir's brilliant translation makes the seond and final edition accessible to English-speaking scholars the world over.