If you think about the law in a macro sense, you may enjoy listening to UK historian Niall Ferguson as he delivers his Reith Lecture, replayed recently on Radio New Zealand.
In his lecture Ferguson examines institutions outside the political, economic and legal realms, whose primary purpose is to preserve and transmit particular knowledge and values.
Delivered at the Royal Society of Edinburgh, he asks if the modern state is quietly killing civil society in the Western world? And what can non-Western societies do to build a vibrant civil society?
- The Human Hive – Niall Ferguson argues that institutions determine the success or failure of nations
- The Darwinian Economy – Niall Ferguson reflects on the causes and lessons of the global financial crisis
- The Landscape of the Law – Niall Ferguson asks if different systems of law are key to economic success – of particular interest to lawyers
- Civil and Uncivil Societies – Niall Ferguson asks what constitutes a vibrant and independent civil society