Ancient Law

Best known as a history of progress, Ancient Law is the enduring work of the 19th-century legal historian Henry Sumner Maine. Even those who have never read Ancient Law may find Maine's famous phrase "from status to contract" familiar. His narrative spans the ancient world, in which individuals were tightly bound by status to traditional groups, and the modern one, in which individuals are viewed as autonomous beings, free to make contracts and form associations with whomever they choose. M...