Bruce Benson's important and well-written book is must reading for anyone interested in limiting government, and also for anarchists or anarcho-capitalists looking for intellectual ammunition. It is an excellent compendium of historical, judicial and economic facts showing how Western states usurped law-making and law enforcement, substituting coercive monopolies for the spontaneously created customary law which had hitherto provided free, universally respected, and efficient systems of natural justice.

For those inclined to dismiss evidence of the efficacy of customary law in early human societies, the book adds both medieval and modern examples of effective non-state law to its fascinating depiction of the customary law of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers, and that of tribes in the few remaining remote corners of the globe as yet untainted by European legal influences. Most interesting of all, to me at least, is Mr Benson's discussion of the Law Merchant. Privately created and maintained, universally obeyed, quick, efficient, and very cheap; the old mercantile law demonstrated, no, demonstrates beyond question the superfluity of the authoritarian, state-created variety.

Another fascinating aspect of the book is Mr Benson's wide-ranging survey of modern private law provision in the United States. Unheralded and virtually unnoticed, customary law is quietly re-emerging due to the massive delays, inefficiency, corruption, and countless injustices of the state monopoly system.

Nicholas Dykes