ABSTRACT
This book is about the search for the origins of law. Earlier enlightenment thinkers had by and large subscribed to the idea of dualism between the primitive and the civilized, which in the legal sphere was understood as a division between savage customs and the laws of civilized peoples. This division was undermined by romanticism, which emphasized the role of culture and tradition. To the early investigators, the quest for the origins of law was a search for culture and for them early predecessors of European civilization and the exotic indigenous peoples were equally followers of early and primitive law. Their explorations for the authentic early culture took place in remote and secluded places in both Europe and beyond.1
