Cambridge University Press Thieves in Court: The Making of the German Legal System in the Nineteenth Century (Publications of the German Historical Institute)

From the seemingly insignificant theft of some bread and a dozen apples in nineteenth century rural Germany, to the high courts and modern-day property laws, this English-language translation of Habermas' Diebe vor Gericht explores how everyday incidents of petty stealing and the ordinary people involved in these cases came to shape the current legal system. Habermas draws from an unusual cache of archival documents of theft cases, tracing the evolution and practice of the legal system of Germany through the nineteenth century. This close reading, relying on approaches of legal anthropology, challenges long-standing narratives of legal development, state building, and modern notions of the rule of law. Ideal for legal historians and scholars of modern German and nineteenth-century European history, this innovative volume steps outside the classic narratives of legal history and gives an insight into the interconnectedness of social, legal and criminal history. Review 'In a brilliant study of 'jurisdictional politics', Rebekka Habermas delivers a fresh and sophisticated account of the social grounding, cultural performance, and public staging that shaped a reformed legal system in the wake of the 1848 revolutions. Challenging not only the celebratory liberal story of the progressive march of the rule of law but also the social historian's class-based critique of the rule of property, she derives the rise of 'the modern legal order' from an elaborate process of cultural conflict and everyday transactions.' Geoff Eley, University of Michigan Book Description An exploration of how petty theft in the nineteenth-century German countryside contributed to the modern-day legal system and property laws. About the Author Rebekka Habermas is Professor and the Chair of Modern History at the Georg-August-University, Goettingen. She is also an editor of Historische Anthropologie journal and co-editor of the Historische Studien series.