Lawyers and Savages

Lawyers and Savages explores the rise and fall of legal primitivism, and its connection to the colonial encounter. Through examples such as blood feuds, communalism, ordeals, ritual formalism and polygamy, the book traces the intellectual revolution of legal anthropology. In doing so, however – and beyond the conventional story from Maine to Malinowski – it introduces an American story: as the book details how legal realism drew on anthropology in order to help counter the hypothetical constructs of legal formalism. Finally, this book shows how, despite the explicit rejection, the central themes of primitive law continue to influence current ideas – about indigenous legal systems, but also of the place and role of law in development.