The collection represents a rich array of interdisciplinaryexpertise, with authors who are law professors, historians,sociologists and criminologists. Their essays include studies into thelives of judges and lawyers, rape victims, prostitutes, religious sectleaders, and common criminals. The geographic scope touches Canada, theUnited States and Australia. The essays explore how one individual, orsmall self-identified groups, were able to make a difference in how lawwas understood, applied, and interpreted. They also probe the degree towhich locale and location influenced legal culture history.

The essays offer snapshots of human history, capturing thecentrality of law as individuals located themselves in relation toothers and to the places and times in which they lived. Accessible toacademics, students, and general readers interested in the formation oflaw within a social context, this collection offers a compellingperspective of this subtle relationship. The close examination ofpeople and place will allow readers to unpack law's variousmeanings across communities and time, and to move closer to a moreprofound awareness of the complexity of human society.