14 minutes ago - PDF READ ONLINE European Law in the Past and the Future: Unity and Diversity over Two Millennia | As Europe moves towards economic and political unification, many wonder why legal unification makes so little headway In this concise but wideranging book, R C van Caenegem considers the historical reasons behind this legal diversity He stresses the importance of the adoption on the Continentbut not in Englandof the classical law of the Romans, and shows how the rise of the nation states led to a multitude of national codes of law The impact of politics on legal development is another key factor, and as a graphic example van Caenegem provides a detailed account of how the German past was extolled in Nazi Germany The book concludes with a consideration of the ongoing debate on the desirabilityindeed, on the possibilityof European legal unification and of a federal constitution for a united Europe