The Rule of Laws

Book author: Fernanda Pirie

The Rule of Laws by Fernanda Pirie is a global history of law that traces the rise and fall of the world’s major legal systems and compares examples of historic law-making worldwide. The fascinating aspect of the book is its geographic breadth and diversity. It does a great job of not missing critical geographies or timelines.

The book challenges our mainstream perception that law or legal order is a  “constraining" framework. In actuality it has been a source of both order and disorder, oppression and liberation, stability and change throughout history. The book does a good job of highlighting law as a very human invention that reflects the diversity and complexity of human societies across the whole globe. 

Although Fernanda Pirie is an academic by profession, her writing is engaging and not at all academic (in a good way!). She employs minimal legal jargon in her writing, although having been a barrister for 10 years, instead impressively managing the chronological sequences and the evolution of events across multiple geographical contexts. The book’s breadth of sources from anthropology and history, to legal theory and philosophy, enrich the nuanced perspective of the role of law in human history and culture. If you enjoy history, and especially history of more quirky (yet widespread phenomena - law) I’d recommend this book.  

Who recommended it? Duty free bookstore in Delhi! 

Why I recommend this book

The breadth and diversity, led me to the a few non-legal takeaways (we will get to the law stuff soon!) - innovation is truly global phenomenon. Whether it was the Indus Valley, Fergana Valley, Mesopotamia, the Greek peninsula, or the mountains of Peru - human innovation was constant and persistent. And in most instances very much parallel! 

As global investors, understanding that each region, country and even city has unique elements embedded in it over centuries of slowly reflecting that society’s complexity, immensely helps to put in perspective that building a business requires that nuance. And building a global business requires that nuance multiplied a few times over! Pirie showcases this fantastically with her book. 

So whether you are investing, building or simply analyzing - do not overlook human nuance and complexity.