In his contribution to the Making of Europe series, Paolo Grossi offers a concise summary of European law from the medieval period to the present day. Aiming for readers without prior legal background or training, Grossi moves quickly through the centuries with few references to specialist literature. Although Grossi begins his story in the Middle Ages, his primary focus is on the transition from the medieval ius commune to the nationalist legal systems of the modern period. He devotes only a few pages to the development of a new European legal order after the Second World War, noting that European law remains a work in progress (158–60).

Despite the scope and generalist approach of Grossi's book, he does occasionally pause to note areas of scholarly disagreement. Although Grossi emphasizes the role of legal personality in the Middle Ages, for example, he also notes that some scholars, especially in Spain, have questioned the importance of the concept (9). On the other hand, Grossi chides certain unnamed Italian legal historians who have described the ius commune as an idealized concept not grounded in reality (33). With regard to the modern period, Grossi downplays the significance of the English Bill of Rights of 1689, which he views not as a constitution in the modern sense, but as a written request, at the conclusion of a successful political struggle, for the monarch not to violate certain rights that had recently been ignored (71). By contrast, Grossi sees the Code Napoléon of 1804 as a dramatic step away from the past, although he acknowledges some continuity between that code and the legal system that preceded it (86). Grossi bluntly dismisses the efforts of certain scholars to re-evaluate the “dense forest of literature” that emerged in certain European countries after codification, arguing that it is “futile” to search for deeper meaning in the writings of jurists who were obsessed with the primacy of the national codes (96). Grossi also warns his readers that certain commonly used terms may be anachronistic or misleading, such as the notion of a medieval “state” (4), the so-called “reception” of Roman law in Germany (98), or the idea that the nineteenth century saw a shift toward “legal socialism” (123).

Faced with a work of this breadth, a legal historian is bound to find areas of disagreement with regard to his or her own research focus. Grossi claims, for example, that “[a]ll attempts by Roman law to ‘invade’ the ‘island’ of English law are rebuffed decisively before they can take root, although there are some hints to be found in the work of legal scholars such as Glanvill (twelfth century) and Bracton (thirteenth century)” (49). Although some historians of English law might agree with this comment, others would view it as an overstatement, and Grossi makes no reference to the debate. Grossi's work, however, is not aimed at legal historians, and specialists should not expect him to discuss every scholarly controversy in great detail.

The Wiley-Blackwell edition of this work is translated from the original Italian edition of 2007. Laurence Hooper's translation is very faithful to the original, perhaps excessively so. Some elegant passages in the Italian original sound awkward in Hooper's English prose, such as the grand metaphor at the book's conclusion (162). Nevertheless, this edition is as good a place as any for an English speaker to begin an exploration of the rich European legal tradition.