Pub Date : 2023-02-01DOI: 10.1017/S0041977X23000381
James Kirby
{"title":"Paul Sidwell and Mathias Jenny (eds): The Languages and Linguistics of Mainland Southeast Asia (The World of Linguistics, volume 8.) xv, 968 pp. Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2021. ISBN 978 3 11055606 3.","authors":"James Kirby","doi":"10.1017/S0041977X23000381","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0041977X23000381","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46190,"journal":{"name":"BULLETIN OF THE SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES-UNIVERSITY OF LONDON","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48145335","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-01DOI: 10.1017/S0041977X23000319
Saloumeh Gholami
{"title":"Maryam Nourzaei, Carina Jahani and Agnes Korn (eds): Oral Narration in Iranian Cultures (Beiträge zur Iranistik 48.) Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2022. 198 pp. ISBN 978 3 7520 0640 7.","authors":"Saloumeh Gholami","doi":"10.1017/S0041977X23000319","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0041977X23000319","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46190,"journal":{"name":"BULLETIN OF THE SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES-UNIVERSITY OF LONDON","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49028834","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-01DOI: 10.1017/S0041977X23000228
T. Staack
Abstract With a view to the necessities as well as the possible problems of a document-based administration, this paper approaches the area of conflict between standardization and flexibility in the production of administrative documents in ancient China. Recently published sources from the imperial Qin period (221–207 bce) have provided the opportunity to compare administrative documents excavated at Liye with standards regulating their production. With the help of two case studies, the paper explores to what extent official document standards were implemented in everyday practice or purposefully neglected in ancient Qianling county. It also discusses which standards were followed more closely than others, and what might be the reasons behind this. Shedding light on the large grey zone between faithful adherence and complete neglect, the paper suggests that officials chose a pragmatic way influenced by both economic considerations informed by the local circumstances and the requirements imposed by the central government.
{"title":"The pragmatics of standardization: document standards and their implementation in Qin administration (late third century bce)","authors":"T. Staack","doi":"10.1017/S0041977X23000228","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0041977X23000228","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract With a view to the necessities as well as the possible problems of a document-based administration, this paper approaches the area of conflict between standardization and flexibility in the production of administrative documents in ancient China. Recently published sources from the imperial Qin period (221–207 bce) have provided the opportunity to compare administrative documents excavated at Liye with standards regulating their production. With the help of two case studies, the paper explores to what extent official document standards were implemented in everyday practice or purposefully neglected in ancient Qianling county. It also discusses which standards were followed more closely than others, and what might be the reasons behind this. Shedding light on the large grey zone between faithful adherence and complete neglect, the paper suggests that officials chose a pragmatic way influenced by both economic considerations informed by the local circumstances and the requirements imposed by the central government.","PeriodicalId":46190,"journal":{"name":"BULLETIN OF THE SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES-UNIVERSITY OF LONDON","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45348558","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-01DOI: 10.1017/s0041977x23000290
T. Barrett
{"title":"Paul A. Cohen: A Path Twice Traveled: My Journey as a Historian of China xii, 303 pp. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019. ISBN 978 0 67423729 2.","authors":"T. Barrett","doi":"10.1017/s0041977x23000290","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0041977x23000290","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46190,"journal":{"name":"BULLETIN OF THE SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES-UNIVERSITY OF LONDON","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49220371","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-01DOI: 10.1017/S0041977X23000174
C. Austin
Abstract This paper examines a pattern in Sanskrit literature, labelled for convenience the “eropolitical compound”. This is a formula whereby a male protagonist's claiming of a feminine figure is made instrumental to, or tied indissociably with, a political victory or reclamation of control over a public domain. This paper first reviews a number of examples of the motif in well-known works of drama, poetry, and eulogistic inscriptions largely of the fourth–seventh centuries ce, setting these against the particular historical and social contexts in which they occur. In a second step, the motif is identified at work in other genre and historic contexts of Sanskrit tradition, suggesting thereby that the figure also requires treatment at a broader level of analysis. The paper's third and final step is to adopt from Simone de Beauvoir the constructs of immanence, transcendence, and the woman as Other, in order to argue that the eropolitical compound is indeed a kind of formula or persisting theme that cuts across multiple historic and genre contexts, and that it should be seen as a normative construct reflecting and enacting a common strategy of patriarchal cultures.
{"title":"The eropolitical compound: immanence, transcendence and a parasitic operation of patriarchy in Sanskrit literature","authors":"C. Austin","doi":"10.1017/S0041977X23000174","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0041977X23000174","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper examines a pattern in Sanskrit literature, labelled for convenience the “eropolitical compound”. This is a formula whereby a male protagonist's claiming of a feminine figure is made instrumental to, or tied indissociably with, a political victory or reclamation of control over a public domain. This paper first reviews a number of examples of the motif in well-known works of drama, poetry, and eulogistic inscriptions largely of the fourth–seventh centuries ce, setting these against the particular historical and social contexts in which they occur. In a second step, the motif is identified at work in other genre and historic contexts of Sanskrit tradition, suggesting thereby that the figure also requires treatment at a broader level of analysis. The paper's third and final step is to adopt from Simone de Beauvoir the constructs of immanence, transcendence, and the woman as Other, in order to argue that the eropolitical compound is indeed a kind of formula or persisting theme that cuts across multiple historic and genre contexts, and that it should be seen as a normative construct reflecting and enacting a common strategy of patriarchal cultures.","PeriodicalId":46190,"journal":{"name":"BULLETIN OF THE SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES-UNIVERSITY OF LONDON","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44088914","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-01DOI: 10.1017/S0041977X23000435
N. Hill
tribe’s frequent migration. Uta Reinöhl (ch. 9) discusses the classification of three Mishmi languages. In addition to an etymological investigation of tribe and language names of the Mishmi languages, the author contributes to establishing a phylogenetic tree of Proto-Kera’a-Tawrã, with Kera’a and Tawrã being its bifurcating branches. The Kera’a languages consist of Mithu and Midu, where Midu is undergoing an unusual innovation of consonant aphaeresis in polysyllabic words. Tawrã, on the other hand, is the most conservative for preserving phonetic features lost in Kera’a. Scott DeLancey’s paper (ch. 10) identifies an innovation that differentiates South Central and Naga Belt languages from other Central branch languages through a comparison of first-person pronominals. In these two subbranches, the pronominal reflexes of first person singular have been commonly replaced by the corresponding plural forms, either inclusive (Naga Belt) or exclusive (South Central). After an elucidation of possible socio-pragmatic motivations of this shared innovation, DeLancey tentatively proposes that first person in Proto-Kuki-Naga exhibits a register-determined alternation to denote singular by the two plural forms in certain socio-pragmatic contexts. Linda Konnerth (ch. 11) reviews pre-existing proposals of classification of South Central languages, with which she integrates new materials from the previously neglected Northwestern subgroup. An updated list of sound correspondences in onsets is then given, along with a brief discussion of carrying out subgrouping through morphosyntactic features. Gwendolyn Hyslop (ch. 12) traces the development of certain verb suffixes in Kurtöp and argues that not all of them are inherited from Proto-East Bodish but from borrowing or morphological innovation, the latter of which has two diachronic origins: grammaticalization from clause-chaining construction, and reanalysis of nominalization. The book successfully presents current advances in linguistic studies in East Himalaya with reference to anthropology. It is recommended to linguists and anthropologists who are interested in this currently flourishing field.
{"title":"Andrew B. Liu: Tea War: A History of Capitalism in China and India (Studies of the Weatherhead East Asia Institute of Columbia University.) xi, 360 pp. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2022. $50. ISBN 978 0 30024373 4.","authors":"N. Hill","doi":"10.1017/S0041977X23000435","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0041977X23000435","url":null,"abstract":"tribe’s frequent migration. Uta Reinöhl (ch. 9) discusses the classification of three Mishmi languages. In addition to an etymological investigation of tribe and language names of the Mishmi languages, the author contributes to establishing a phylogenetic tree of Proto-Kera’a-Tawrã, with Kera’a and Tawrã being its bifurcating branches. The Kera’a languages consist of Mithu and Midu, where Midu is undergoing an unusual innovation of consonant aphaeresis in polysyllabic words. Tawrã, on the other hand, is the most conservative for preserving phonetic features lost in Kera’a. Scott DeLancey’s paper (ch. 10) identifies an innovation that differentiates South Central and Naga Belt languages from other Central branch languages through a comparison of first-person pronominals. In these two subbranches, the pronominal reflexes of first person singular have been commonly replaced by the corresponding plural forms, either inclusive (Naga Belt) or exclusive (South Central). After an elucidation of possible socio-pragmatic motivations of this shared innovation, DeLancey tentatively proposes that first person in Proto-Kuki-Naga exhibits a register-determined alternation to denote singular by the two plural forms in certain socio-pragmatic contexts. Linda Konnerth (ch. 11) reviews pre-existing proposals of classification of South Central languages, with which she integrates new materials from the previously neglected Northwestern subgroup. An updated list of sound correspondences in onsets is then given, along with a brief discussion of carrying out subgrouping through morphosyntactic features. Gwendolyn Hyslop (ch. 12) traces the development of certain verb suffixes in Kurtöp and argues that not all of them are inherited from Proto-East Bodish but from borrowing or morphological innovation, the latter of which has two diachronic origins: grammaticalization from clause-chaining construction, and reanalysis of nominalization. The book successfully presents current advances in linguistic studies in East Himalaya with reference to anthropology. It is recommended to linguists and anthropologists who are interested in this currently flourishing field.","PeriodicalId":46190,"journal":{"name":"BULLETIN OF THE SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES-UNIVERSITY OF LONDON","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45635664","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-01DOI: 10.1017/s0041977x23000125
W. Floor
{"title":"ANDREW J. NEWMAN (ed.): Iranian/Persianate Subaltern in the Safavid Period: Their Role and Depiction. Recovering Lost Voices. Berlin: Gerlach Press, 2022. xxiv. 243 pp. £85. ISBN 978 3 95994 152 5.","authors":"W. Floor","doi":"10.1017/s0041977x23000125","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0041977x23000125","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46190,"journal":{"name":"BULLETIN OF THE SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES-UNIVERSITY OF LONDON","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43160303","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-01DOI: 10.1017/S0041977X22000878
Miguel Ángel Andrés-Toledo
Abstract The Pahlavi syntagm zīndag ruwān (NP zende/zinde ravān), literally “living soul / soul of the living”, designates a Zoroastrian funerary ceremony to be performed by priests on behalf of a person in his/her lifetime for the benefit of his/her own soul. It is particularly ordered by that person as a pre-emptive means to ensure that the funerary prayers will be recited, even if relatives are unable to do so, and to guarantee the protection of the god Sraoša in the passing away to the afterlife. In this contribution, I discuss the most relevant aspects of this Zoroastrian ceremony that can be extracted from the Pahlavi literature, and consider that its changes from older periods until modern times are due to diachronic, diatopic and socio-economic variables.
{"title":"The zīndag ruwān ceremony in historical perspective","authors":"Miguel Ángel Andrés-Toledo","doi":"10.1017/S0041977X22000878","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0041977X22000878","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The Pahlavi syntagm zīndag ruwān (NP zende/zinde ravān), literally “living soul / soul of the living”, designates a Zoroastrian funerary ceremony to be performed by priests on behalf of a person in his/her lifetime for the benefit of his/her own soul. It is particularly ordered by that person as a pre-emptive means to ensure that the funerary prayers will be recited, even if relatives are unable to do so, and to guarantee the protection of the god Sraoša in the passing away to the afterlife. In this contribution, I discuss the most relevant aspects of this Zoroastrian ceremony that can be extracted from the Pahlavi literature, and consider that its changes from older periods until modern times are due to diachronic, diatopic and socio-economic variables.","PeriodicalId":46190,"journal":{"name":"BULLETIN OF THE SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES-UNIVERSITY OF LONDON","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45706083","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-01DOI: 10.1017/S0041977X22000787
Kumiko Yamamoto
Abstract This paper compares the Ḥamzanāma (Book of Ḥamza) with the Shāhnāma (Book of Kings), the two most popular works performed by the storytellers of Safavid Iran (1501–1736), focusing on their heroes, Ḥamza and Rustam, respectively. Following an overview of the Ḥamzanāma that helps to identify its main intertexts, themes, and narrative elements: the Shāhnāma; the Islamic Alexander tradition; and ʿayyārī (trickery); the paper re-examines how Ḥamza is modelled after Rustam by looking at his epithets and narrative functions. It then turns to their differences, which are most discernible in Rustam's epithet used as the name of Ḥamza's enemy, the split between the ideals of jawānmardī (generosity) and ʿayyārī, and Ḥamza's unheroic weaknesses. This latter serves to emphasize God's compassion at his martyrdom while giving storytellers an impetus to continue their performances.
{"title":"Ḥamza versus Rustam: Comparing the Ḥamzanāma with the Shāhnāma","authors":"Kumiko Yamamoto","doi":"10.1017/S0041977X22000787","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0041977X22000787","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper compares the Ḥamzanāma (Book of Ḥamza) with the Shāhnāma (Book of Kings), the two most popular works performed by the storytellers of Safavid Iran (1501–1736), focusing on their heroes, Ḥamza and Rustam, respectively. Following an overview of the Ḥamzanāma that helps to identify its main intertexts, themes, and narrative elements: the Shāhnāma; the Islamic Alexander tradition; and ʿayyārī (trickery); the paper re-examines how Ḥamza is modelled after Rustam by looking at his epithets and narrative functions. It then turns to their differences, which are most discernible in Rustam's epithet used as the name of Ḥamza's enemy, the split between the ideals of jawānmardī (generosity) and ʿayyārī, and Ḥamza's unheroic weaknesses. This latter serves to emphasize God's compassion at his martyrdom while giving storytellers an impetus to continue their performances.","PeriodicalId":46190,"journal":{"name":"BULLETIN OF THE SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES-UNIVERSITY OF LONDON","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48594131","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-01DOI: 10.1017/S0041977X23000046
Godefroid de Callataÿ
decisive light on this question. This constitutes an important research agenda for future work on these papyri. The second part of the book delves into the literary sources on the early history of the office. Lists and biographies of early qāḍīs appear relatively late in the literature, but the material they contain displays a remarkable degree of verisimilitude. The judges they depict are neither saints nor villains, and they practise a law that sometimes diverges in significant ways from later accepted legal norms. On the basis of his summary analysis, Tillier concludes that we can reconstruct the existence of and practices of qāḍīs in the first half of the eighth century. He then proceeds to construct an image of the judge from the ground up, in as differentiated a manner as possible, shedding light on such questions as where the judge held court in different cities, how litigants petitioned the court, where they were placed within it, and what other officials served the court under the qāḍī. In the final part of the book, Tillier turns to the question of the “origin” of the office of the qāḍī. Previous studies (such as Tyan’s, or von Grunebaum’s 1939 review of Tyan in JAOS, or the work of Crone and Hallaq on Islamic law in general) have generally posited a particular pre-Islamic source of Islamic institutions. Tillier argues convincingly, first, that our knowledge of late antique law in the Near East is too patchy to allow us to discern exactly the kinds of legal cultures the Arab conquerors inherited and, second, that what we do know suggests that the process was not one of simple adoption but rather of the complex and gradual construction of a unified legal system that included existing elements but integrated them into a novel system with a high degree of homogeneity across the provinces. Tillier’s reading of the literary and documentary evidence is diligent, and his conclusions are restrained, thoughtful, and convincing. They pose a refreshing contrast with more flamboyant and speculative accounts of early legal institutions (such as Jokisch’s in his Islamic Imperial Law and Crone’s in her Roman Provincial Law). Its lack of sensationalism, combined with the fact that it is written in French, has unfortunately limited the impact of the book on the field. The language barrier, at least, has now been to some degree removed by the availability of an open-access online version of the book (at https://books.openedition.org/psorbonne/36105?lang) that yields a decent automatic translation into English – good enough, in my experience, to use in the classroom. Tillier’s work shows what legal history can look like when the sources are considered holistically in their variety. Much has been achieved by Tillier, much more remains to be done in this important area.
{"title":"Wafi A. Momin (ed.): Texts, Scribes and Transmission: Manuscript Cultures of the Ismaili Communities and Beyond. xv, 481 pp. London: I.B. Tauris in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2022.","authors":"Godefroid de Callataÿ","doi":"10.1017/S0041977X23000046","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0041977X23000046","url":null,"abstract":"decisive light on this question. This constitutes an important research agenda for future work on these papyri. The second part of the book delves into the literary sources on the early history of the office. Lists and biographies of early qāḍīs appear relatively late in the literature, but the material they contain displays a remarkable degree of verisimilitude. The judges they depict are neither saints nor villains, and they practise a law that sometimes diverges in significant ways from later accepted legal norms. On the basis of his summary analysis, Tillier concludes that we can reconstruct the existence of and practices of qāḍīs in the first half of the eighth century. He then proceeds to construct an image of the judge from the ground up, in as differentiated a manner as possible, shedding light on such questions as where the judge held court in different cities, how litigants petitioned the court, where they were placed within it, and what other officials served the court under the qāḍī. In the final part of the book, Tillier turns to the question of the “origin” of the office of the qāḍī. Previous studies (such as Tyan’s, or von Grunebaum’s 1939 review of Tyan in JAOS, or the work of Crone and Hallaq on Islamic law in general) have generally posited a particular pre-Islamic source of Islamic institutions. Tillier argues convincingly, first, that our knowledge of late antique law in the Near East is too patchy to allow us to discern exactly the kinds of legal cultures the Arab conquerors inherited and, second, that what we do know suggests that the process was not one of simple adoption but rather of the complex and gradual construction of a unified legal system that included existing elements but integrated them into a novel system with a high degree of homogeneity across the provinces. Tillier’s reading of the literary and documentary evidence is diligent, and his conclusions are restrained, thoughtful, and convincing. They pose a refreshing contrast with more flamboyant and speculative accounts of early legal institutions (such as Jokisch’s in his Islamic Imperial Law and Crone’s in her Roman Provincial Law). Its lack of sensationalism, combined with the fact that it is written in French, has unfortunately limited the impact of the book on the field. The language barrier, at least, has now been to some degree removed by the availability of an open-access online version of the book (at https://books.openedition.org/psorbonne/36105?lang) that yields a decent automatic translation into English – good enough, in my experience, to use in the classroom. Tillier’s work shows what legal history can look like when the sources are considered holistically in their variety. Much has been achieved by Tillier, much more remains to be done in this important area.","PeriodicalId":46190,"journal":{"name":"BULLETIN OF THE SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES-UNIVERSITY OF LONDON","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47753874","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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