Full Description
The ancient world existed before the modern conceptual and linguistic apparatus of rights, and any attempts to understand its place in history must be undertaken with care. This volume covers not only Greco-Roman antiquity, but ranges from the ancient Near East to early Confucian China; Deuteronomic Judaism to Ptolemaic Egypt; and rabbinic Judaism to Sasanian law. It describes ancient normative conceptions of personhood and practices of law in a way that respects their historical and linguistic particularity, appreciating the distinctiveness of the cultures under study whilst clarifying their salience for comparative study. Through thirteen expertly researched essays, volume one of The Cambridge History of Rights is a comprehensive and authoritative reference for the history of rights in the global ancient world and highlights societies that the field has long neglected.
Contents
Introduction Clifford Ando, Mirko Canevaro and Benjamin Straumann; 1. To claim to protect claims: the generative discourse of Mesopotamian legal rights Seth Richardson; 2. The individual and the communal: early Confucian resources for human rights May Sim; 3. human rights in the Hebrew Bible? Sandra Jacobs; 4. Greek subjective rights? Justice, legal discourse, and legal institutions Mirko Canevaro and Linda Rocchi; 5. Aristotle on subjective rights Pia Campeggiani; 6. Do rights exist in Hellenistic philosophy? Jon Miller; 7. Rights in Ptolemaic Egypt Nadine Grotkamp; 8. Rights in Roman Republican thought Valentina Arena; 9. Ius in the subjective sense in classical Roman law Charles Donahue, Jr; 10. Rights and dignity in late ancient thought Kyle Harper; 11. Rights in late ancient law? Noel Lenski; 12. Rabbinic Judaism Alyssa M. Gray; 13. Sasanian law Maria Macuch.
