Traditional Legal Culture in China
The book comprehensively explores the origins, structure, characteristics, functions, and unique role of Chinese legal tradition within the global scope of legal culture. It adopts a thematic framework that extends across multifaceted dimensions to examine the evolution, features and impact of Chinese legal culture, breaking away from the traditional chronological approach to legal history.
The book seamlessly integrates macro and micro views, bridges ancient and modern, as well as Chinese and foreign perspectives, and combines state law with folk law, and law with ethics. The content covers seven key aspects: the culture of rites and etiquettes, penal culture and practice, the culture of legal philosophies, the culture of a legal system, contractual culture, the culture of mediation, and the culture of justice. The topics encompass the origins of traditional Chinese law, the evolution of legal thoughts, the development of legal systems, the procedures and effects of legal practices, and the relationship between legal development and social change.
This book is primarily aimed at legal scholars, students, and practitioners who are interested in understanding Chinese traditional legal culture. It is also intended for readers with a moderate level of education or higher, who seek to understand Chinese legal history and culture.
Renshan Zhang is a professor of Law School at Nanjing University, executive chairman of China Institute of Legal History (CILA), chairman of Institute of Legal History of Jiangsu Province Law Society, adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins University-Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies, member of the Sino-American Joint Academic Committee (JAC), director of the Research Center for Judicial Culture, Law School at Nanjing University, editor-in-chief of the Nanjing University Law Review (2008–2017). His main works include Law School History of Nanjing University: 1927–2021, Modern Chinese Law Through a Multidimensional Perspective, Traditional Legal Culture in China, Sovereignty, Legal Rights and Society in Modern China, Rites, Law and Society: Legal Transition and Social Change in Qing Dynasty, Perspectives in Legal and Social History, Chinese Society in 1949, and Judicial Corruption and Social Breakdown: 1928–1949.
