Harold Berman's masterwork narrates the interaction of evolution and revolution in the development of Western law. This new volume explores two successive transformations of the Western legal tradition under the impact of the sixteenth-century German Reformation and the seventeenth-century English Revolution, with particular emphasis on Lutheran and Calvinist influences. Berman examines the far-reaching consequences of these apocalyptic political and social upheavals on the systems of legal philosophy, legal science, criminal law, civil and economic law, and social law in Germany and England and throughout Europe as a whole.

Berman challenges both conventional approaches to legal history, which have neglected the religious foundations of Western legal systems, and standard social theory, which has paid insufficient attention to the communitarian dimensions of early modern economic law, including corporation law and social welfare.

Clearly written and cogently argued, this long-awaited, magisterial work is a major contribution to an understanding of the relationship of law to Western belief systems.

伯爾曼是當代美國最具世界影響力的法學傢之一，世界知名的比較法學傢、國際法學傢、法史學傢、社會主義法專傢，以及法與宗教關係領域最著名的先驅人物。他對中國當代法學界也産生過重大影響，是中國法學界比較熟悉的外國法學傢。

1918年，伯爾曼齣生於美國康涅狄格州的哈特佛市（Hartford）。1947年，29歲的伯爾曼在耶魯大學獲得法學博士學位，轉年即進入哈佛大學法學院任教。到1985年，他去瞭愛莫蕾法學院，直至去世。

在將近60年的教學研究生涯中，伯爾曼教授獲得瞭許多名副其實的榮譽。他著作等身，共齣版瞭25本專著，發錶過400多篇學術論文。為他贏得最高學術聲譽的是《法律和革命：西方法律傳統的形成》（1983），他的這部代錶作被譯成瞭德、法、中、俄、波蘭、西班牙、意大利和立陶宛語，而他的其他作品被譯為他國語言的總和達到20種。他的重要著作還有《信念與秩序：法律和宗教的諧調》《法律與第二次革命：新教改革對西方法律傳統的衝擊》等。