The Law of Primitive Man: A Study in Comparative Legal Dynamics (First Edition)

Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1954. First edition. This is the Third printing, from 1964. Fine in a fine jacket, with slight edgewear to jacket. Full gray cloth; spine lettered in green. A tight, clean, fresh copy with a previous owner’s name stamped on the front pastedown and publisher’s original price ($6.00) intact on front jacket flap. 8vo, 357 pp. with bibliography and index. Comes with archival-quality mylar dust jacket protector. A comparative anthropological study of law, custom, social control, and dispute resolution in nonindustrial societies. The Law of Primitive Man expanded legal realism beyond Western legal systems and argued that comparative legal anthropology could contribute to the development of world governance. The author defined law as a social norm whose violation is met, or threatened to be met, with physical force by a person or group socially recognized as having authority to act. His approach located law and government in the practical enforcement of community norms, rather than merely in formal institutions, political capitals, or the power of a ruling elite. Later scholars treated The Law of Primitive Man as a classic elaboration of that method and credited his work with replacing formalistic ideas of “primitive law” with functional analysis of disputes, sanctions, and social authority.…