Kaius Tuori: Lawyers and savages. Ancient history and legal realism in the making of legal anthropology

Abstract

Tuori has the good fortune to have had the opportunity to study history, law and anthropology, which has equipped him to dive into the nouvelle vague of interdisciplinary research. In consequence, his latest book analyses the rise and fall of legal primitivism following the work of pioneers in a wide variety of disciplines. Focusing on the trilogy of sex, greed and violence, the narrative takes us from the Americas to Australia, Greenland, Africa and further. Greed is represented by the paradigmatic variations played on the theme of the development of ownership of land and contract; sex stands for the Dichtung und Wahrheit spun around matriarchy, promiscuity, polygamy and the "civilised" monogamy, while violence hovers in vendetta, feud, honour killings and blood revenge. Within the tales about these themes the reader meets old friends like the brothers Grimm, von Savigny, von Jhering, Fustel de Coulanges, Maine and Schiller, but is also introduced to a sparkling variety of new authorities such as Martius, Lonrot, Bachofen, Malinowski, Boas, Llewellynand Gluchkman to name but a few.