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An all-new translation of the most important ancient Near East documents that share parallel themes and issues with biblical stories.

Pages: 411, Edition: Rev Sub, Paperback, Ignatius Press

Pages: 404, Edition: 1, Hardcover, Mercer University Press

The churchs process for declaring a marriage null is a mystery to most people. While a declaration of nullity is a matter of public record, the facts of each case are confidential, leading to misunderstanding, misinformation and pastoral problems. This book demystifies the concepts and the procedures surrounding annulments. 205 pages from Paulist Press.

Pages: 432, Hardcover, Mazda Publishers

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Russians from all ranks of society were bound together by a culture of honor. In this book, one of the foremost scholars of early modern Russia explores the intricate and highly stylized codes that made up this culture. Drawing on a rich array of archival and published sources, Nancy Shields Kollmann describes how these codes were manipulated to construct identity and enforce social norms - and also to defend against insults, to pursue vendettas, and generally to unsettle communities. She offers compelling evidence for a new view of the relationship of state and society in the Russian empire, and her richly comparative approach enhances knowledge of statebuilding in premodern Europe.

The exemplary life of an extraordinary politician and reformer.

Though he held no elected or appointed office, the New York City lawyer Charles C. Burlingham had great influence with those who did, and used it in unusual ways. George Martin's surprising biography shows how one citizen, working quietly behind the scenes, became a power broker who transformed his country's civic life.

Growing up after the Civil War, CCB--as everyone called him--was enthralled by America's dynamism of his city but shocked by the social costs of modernization, and he deplored the endemic corruption of city politics; eventually he let his law practice take a backseat to civil reform work. His second career in "meddling," as he called it, helped to put great judges on the bench (among them Benjamin Cardozo) and climaxed when he arranged the Fusion reform ticket on which Fiorello La Guardia swept to victory in 1933. Nor does Martin neglect Burlingham's private life--his eccentric wife, tragically afflicted son, and daughter-in-law Dorothy Tiffany Burlingham, who took CCB's grandchildren off to Vienna to be analyzed, as she was, by Sigmund and Anna Freud.

This adroit, engaging account of a high-spirited, good-hearted, talented man, chronicling his witty, effective commitment to social betterment, vividly documents a century of change in the ways Americans lived, their cities were governed, and their nation fought wars.

Goethe is said to have likened the Roman civil law to a duck: sometimes it is visible, swimming prominently on the surface of the water, at other times it is hidden, diving amid the depths. but it is always there. This may be said to be true not only in continental Europe and Scotland, where Roman law has been a dominant influence, but also in England and the U.S.A., where Roman law has often informed and supplemented Common law. None of the great writers on Common law, with the exception perhaps of Coke, failed to take Roman law in to consideration, especially on the matters of legal theory. Indeed the differences between the two systems can easily be exaggerated. Ne one is better qualified to write on these matters than Peter Stein; this collection of his articles covers both the nature and the tradition of Roman law and ranges from classical to modern times. The Character and Influence of the Roman Civil Law includes discussions of the ethos and principles of Roman law and of their transmission and transformation in medieval and modern times. Attention is drawn to the working of Roman law in San Marinom which retains the uncodified ius commune.Civil lawyers in England whose work is examined include Vacarius, Thomas Smith and Thomas Legge. Roman law in Scotland is looked at in depth, with special consideration for the natural law tradtition there. A piece on the origin of the four stage theory of social development, which grew out of that tradition and was adopted by Adam Smith, appears for the first time. Finally Professor Stein shows the attraction of Roman law to lawyers in the U.S.A. when they were trying to establish their own legal system following Independence.

In this text, the author contends that the sectoral divide - the division between the public and private sectors - and not the divisions among America's political institutions, makes up the most significant separation within American law. This divide is traced through US legal history.