The driving force of the dynamic development of world legal history in the past few centuries, with the dominance of the West, was clearly the demands of modernisation – transforming existing reality into what is seen as modern. The need for modernisation, determining the development of modern law, however, clashed with the need to preserve cultural identity rooted in national traditions. With selected examples of different legal institutions, countries and periods, the authors of the essays in the two volumes
Modernisation, National Identity and Legal Instrumentalism: Studies in Comparative Legal History, vol. I:Private Law and
Modernisation, National Identity and Legal Instrumentalism: Studies in Comparative Legal History, vol. II: Public Law seek to explain the nature of this problem.
Contributors are Michał Gałędek, Katrin Kiirend-Pruuli, Anna Klimaszewska, Łukasz Jan Korporowicz, Beata J. Kowalczyk, Marju Luts-Sootak, Marcin Michalak, Annamaria Monti, Zsuzsanna Peres, Sara Pilloni, Hesi Siimets-Gross, Sean Thomas, Bart Wauters, Steven Wilf, and Mingzhe Zhu.
Michał Gałędek Ph.D. (2010), University of Gdańsk, is Professor in the Department of Legal History, Faculty of Law and Administration. In his research he focuses on the Polish administration, judiciary, constitutionalism, and political thought at the beginning of the 19th century and in the interwar period.
Anna Klimaszewska Ph.D. (2011), University of Gdańsk, is Assistant Professor in the Department of Legal History, Faculty of Law and Administration. In her research she focuses on the influence exerted by the French law on the shape of the Polish legal system, commercial law, civil procedure and national legal identity in the 19th century.
Tables Notes on Contributors
1
Introduction: Modernisation, National Identity, and Legal Instrumentalism Michał Gałędek
2
Prenuptial Agreements of the Hungarian Aristocracy in the Early Modern Era Zsuzsanna Peres
3
Revolution and the Instrumentality of Law: Theories of Property in the American and French Revolutions Bart Wauters
4
English Commercial Law in the Longue Durée: Chasing Continental Shadows Sean Thomas
5
The Italian Destiny of the French Code de commerce (19th Century) Annamaria Monti
6
The Reception of the French Commercial Code in Nineteenth-Century Polish Territories: A Hollow Legal Shell Anna Klimaszewska
7
Development of the medical malpractice law and legal instrumentalism in the Antebellum America Marcin Michalak
8
The Contractual Third-Party Notion: Beyond the Principle of the Relativity of Contracts: The Comparative Legal History as Methodological Approach Sara Pilloni
9
Civilian Arguments in the House of Lords’ Judgments: Regarding Delictual (Tortious) Liability in 20th and 21st Century Łukasz Jan Korporowicz
10
Usucapio in Era of Real Estate Title Registration Systems Beata J. Kowalczyk
11
In the Name of the Republic: Family Reform in Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth-Century France and China Mingzhe Zhu
12
The Private Law Codification as an Instrument for the Consolidation of a Nation from Inside: Estonia and Latvia between two World Wars Marju Luts-Sootak, Hesi Siimets-Gross, Katrin Kiirend-Pruuli
13
Reluctant Legal Transplant: United States Moral Rights as Late 20th Century Honor Law Steven Wilf Index
All interested in the history of the development of law by the pursuit of goals serving modernisation or national ideologies in various countries, cultural spheres, and periods.