Today’s guest is David Friedman of Santa Clara University. Our discussion centers around his upcoming book, Legal Systems Very Different From Ours, which you can read in draft form at his website.

David became interested in this topic when he became interested in the decentralized legal system of saga-period Iceland. This interest has since expanded into a full book covering everything from Imperial Chinese Law to the customary legal system of Somaliland in northern Somalia. We discuss some of these chapters, with a focus on Somalian, Jewish, Icelandic, and 18th-century British law. We also discuss some of the major themes of the book, such as feud law and embedded or polylegal systems.

Related links:

I. M. Lewis’ book on the modern history of Somalia

The Invisible Hook by Peter Leeson (He contributed a chapter on pirate law to Legal Systems Very Different From Ours). He was also a recent guest of this show.

Download this episode.

Scott Alexander recently reviewed this book and wrote a follow-up on specific interesting passages.

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