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A Secular Need

Islamic Law and State Governance in Contemporary India

By Jeffrey A. Redding

Whether from the perspective of Islamic law’s advocates, secularism’s partisans, or communities caught in their crossfire, many people see the relationship between Islamic law and secularism as antagonistic and increasingly discordant. In the United States...

Circulating the Code

Print Media and Legal Knowledge in Qing China

By Ting Zhang

Contrary to longtime assumptions about the insular nature of imperial China’s legal system, Circulating the Code demonstrates that in the Qing dynasty (1644–1911) most legal books were commercially published and available to anyone who could...

Reclaiming the Reservation

Histories of Indian Sovereignty Suppressed and Renewed

By Alexandra Harmon

In the 1970s the Quinault and Suquamish, like dozens of Indigenous nations across the United States, asserted their sovereignty by applying their laws to everyone on their reservations. This included arresting non-Indians for minor offenses,...

Living Sharia

Law and Practice in Malaysia

By Timothy P. Daniels

Drawing on ethnographic research, Living Sharia examines the role of sharia in the sociopolitical processes of contemporary Malaysia. The book traces the contested implementation of Islamic family and criminal laws and sharia economics to provide...

Down with Traitors

Justice and Nationalism in Wartime China

By Yun Xia

Throughout the War of Resistance against Japan (1931–1945), the Chinese Nationalist government punished collaborators with harsh measures, labeling the enemies from within hanjian (literally, “traitors to the Han Chinese”). Trials of hanjian gained momentum during...

The Emotions of Justice

Gender, Status, and Legal Performance in Choson Korea

By Jisoo M. Kim

The Choson state (1392–1910) is typically portrayed as a rigid society because of its hereditary status system, slavery, and Confucian gender norms. However, The Emotions of Justice reveals a surprisingly complex picture of a judicial...

Forgery and Impersonation in Imperial China

Popular Deceptions and the High Qing State

By Mark P. McNicholas

Across eighteenth-century China a wide range of common people forged government documents or pretended to be officials or other agents of the state. This examination of case records and law codes traces the legal meanings...

Legal Literacy

An Introduction to Legal Studies

By Archie Zariski

To understand how the legal system works, students must consider the law in terms of its structures, processes, language, and modes of thought and argument—in short, they must become literate in the field. Legal Literacy...

The Limits of the Rule of Law in China

By Karen G. Turner, James V. Feinerman, Robert K. Guy

In The Limits of the Rule of Law in China, fourteen authors from different academic disciplines reflect on questions that have troubled Chinese and Western scholars of jurisprudence since classical times. Using data from the...

Legal Reform in Taiwan under Japanese Colonial Rule, 1895-1945

The Reception of Western Law

By Tay-sheng Wang

Taiwan’s modern legal system--quite different from those of both traditional China and the People’s Republic--has evolved since the advent of Japanese rule in 1895. Japan has gradually adopted Western law during the 19th-century and when...

The Great Ming Code / Da Ming lu

By Jiang Yonglin

Imperial China’s dynastic legal codes provide a wealth of information for historians, social scientists, and scholars of comparative law and of literary, cultural, and legal history. Until now, only the Tang (618–907 C.E.) and Qing...

Wrongful Deaths

Selected Inquest Records from Nineteenth-Century Korea

By Sun Joo Kim, Jungwon Kim

This collection presents and analyzes inquest records that tell the stories of ordinary Korean people under the Choson court (1392-1910). Extending the study of this period, usually limited to elites, into the realm of everyday...

The Mandate of Heaven and The Great Ming Code

By Jiang Yonglin

After overthrowing the Mongol Yuan dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang, the founder of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), proclaimed that he had obtained the Mandate of Heaven (Tianming), enabling establishment of a spiritual orientation and social agenda for...

A Lawyer in Indian Country

A Memoir

By Alvin J. Ziontz. Foreword by Charles Wilkinson

In his memoir, Alvin Ziontz reflects on his more than thirty years representing Indian tribes, from a time when Indian law was little known through landmark battles that upheld tribal sovereignty. He discusses the growth...

Ipse Dixit

How the World Looks to a Federal Judge

By William L. Dwyer

During William L. Dwyer's fifteen-year tenure as a U.S. District Court judge, he presided over many complex and groundbreaking cases. In one of his most controversial rulings, he engaged environmentalists and the timber industry in...

True Crimes in Eighteenth-Century China

Twenty Case Histories

By Robert E. Hegel

The little-examined genre of legal case narratives is represented in this fascinating volume, the first collection translated into English of criminal cases - most involving homicide - from late imperial China. These true stories of...

Writing and Law in Late Imperial China

Crime, Conflict, and Judgment

By Robert E. Hegel and Katherine Carlitz

In this fascinating, multidisciplinary volume, scholars of Chinese history, law, literature, and religions explore the intersections of legal practice with writing in many different social contexts. They consider the overlapping concerns of legal culture and...

Law in Japan

A Turning Point

By Daniel H. Foote

This volume explores major developments in Japanese law over the latter half of the twentieth century and looks ahead to the future. Modeled on the classic work Law in Japan: The Legal Order in a...

The Great Ming Code / Da Ming lu

By Yonglin Jiang, Yonglin Jiang

Imperial China’s dynastic legal codes provide a wealth of information for historians, social scientists, and scholars of comparative law and of literary, cultural, and legal history. Until now, only the Tang (618–907 C.E.) and Qing...

A Penny for the Governor, a Dollar for Uncle Sam

Income Taxation in Washington

By Phil Roberts

In 1932, 60 percent of Washington State voters approved a state income tax. Within less than a year, the measure was struck down as unconstitutional by the state supreme court. Over half a century later,...