The central idea of David Friedman’s forthcoming book on legal systems of different societies is they face similar problems and solve them, or fail to, in an interesting variety of ways.
Looking at a range of such societies and trying to make sense of their legal systems provides a window into both problems and solutions, useful for the general project of understanding law—in particular but not exclusively from an economic point of view—and for the narrower project of improving it.
Unlike the usual course in comparative law, he did not look at systems close to ours such as modern Civil Law or Japanese law. Instead, Friedman examined systems from the distant past (Athens, Imperial China), from radically different societies (saga period Iceland, Sharia), or contemporary systems independent of government law (gypsy law, Amish).
System Chapters
Icelandic Law
18th c. English Criminal Law
Gypsy Law
Chinese Law
Athenian Law: The Work of a Mad Economist
Jewish Law
Islamic Law [Recently Updated]
Plains Indian Law
Puzzles of Irish Law
Amish Law
Somali Law [Recently Updated]
Commanche, Kiowa and Cheyenne: The Plains Indians
Thread Chapters
Enforcement Mechanisms: Civil, Criminal, And Lots More
The Incentive to Enforce: What and How Much
Embedded and Polylegal Systems
God as Legislator
Making Law
Guarding the Guardians
His Class web page is based on Student Papers from the SCU Seminar
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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