Ordenar el mundo

Throughout history, rulers have used laws to impose order. But the laws were not simply instruments of power and social control: they also offered ordinary people a way to express their diverse visions for a better world. Almost all the laws now applied throughout the world are based on the systems developed in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. During two hundred years of colonial rule, Europeans exported their laws everywhere they could, but often they weren't filling a void: in many places, they displaced traditions that were already ancient. In Ordering the World Fernanda Pirie traces the history of the rise and fall of legal systems that sustained ancient empires and religious traditions, while showing how ordinary people (tribal assemblies, merchants, farmers) asked for laws to define their communities. , regulate trade and, finally, and build civilizations. Although legal principles originating in Western Europe now seem to dominate the world, the variety of laws on the planet has long been almost as great as the variety of its societies. What truly unites human beings, she argues, is our very faith that laws can produce justice, combat oppression, and create order out of chaos.