(Source: Carolina Academic Press)
Carolina Academic Press has published a new
book dealing with several American Roman law scholars who worked in the early
20th century.
ABOUT
Earlier generations of Americans were
connected to the classical past—to ancient Greece and Rome—to an extent we find
hard to understand today. The Founders’ training in Latin and ancient history
led them to model their new nation after the Roman Republic, and most educated
Americans had broadly similar skills and knowledge until the early twentieth
century. Lost in Translations describes
how this connection helped inspire men who were educated in the late 1800s to
dedicate much of their lives to translating fundamental documents of Western
Civilization—such as Justinian’s Code—and to write extensively about Roman law.
This book addresses the history of American education (including legal
education), as well as the function of Roman law among the elite bar. The book
also uses correspondence and other previously unpublished information to
humanize such major figures as Roscoe Pound.
Lost in Translations focuses on five Roman
law scholars (all but one of whom were trained as lawyers) who worked early in
the twentieth century: Samuel Parsons Scott (1846–1929), Charles Sumner
Lobingier (1866–1956), Charles Phineas Sherman (1874–1962), Fred H. Blume
(1875–1971), and Clyde Pharr (1883–1972). Among them, they produced the first
English translations of the Codex Theodosianus and Justinian’s entire Corpus
Juris Civilis, as well as other ancient Roman laws. This book describes their
heroic and often solitary labor, some of which they did not see come to
fruition in their own lifetimes. It should be of interest to historians, lawyers,
educators, and classicists.
This book is part of the Legal History
Series, edited by H. Jefferson Powell, Duke University School of Law.
For an overview of the book by the author, see here
More information to be found on the publisher’s
website
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