What Makes Civilisation?

"A good, legal history lesson containing a wealth of information"

- David Sutton

"A wonderfully thought-provoking, hugely informative overview of many civilisations, dealing with the contributions of the Romans, the Chinese, and the Arabs to our own, focussing on the importance of the Law"

- Tony Herbert

What makes Civilisation? is an overview of the history of Law and Western civilisation from the Mycenaeans to today - over 3000 years. The impetus for writing this short book was my belief that classicists, historians, economists and politicians simply do not understand law. They have a blind spot. As such, they are uninterested in this topic. Without law, you cannot have a developed civilisation.

As a result of this misunderstanding, on any discussion on Western civilisation, the enormous contribution law has made is simply ignored or not given the attention it deserves. This book attempts to tackle the reasons why law's contribution to Western civilisation is so misunderstood.

I conclude by comparing Western civilisation with other previous civilisations and comment on postmodernism and the rule of law.