Michael A. Livingston – författare

For fifty years, the first edition of The Italian Legal System has been the gold standard among English-language works on the Italian legal system. The book's original authors, Mauro Cappelletti, John Henry Merryman, and Joseph M. Perillo, provided not only an overview of Italian law, but a definition of the field, together with an important contribution to the general literature on comparative law. The book explains the unique "Italian style" in doctrine, law, and interpretation and includes an extremely well-written introduction to Italian legal history, government, the legal profession, and civil procedure and evidence.In this fully-updated and revised second edition, authors Michael A. Livingston, Pier Giuseppe Monateri, and Francesco Parisi describe the substantial changes in Italian law and society in the intervening five decades—including the creation and impact of the European Union, as well as important advances in comparative law methodology. The second edition poses timely, relevant questions of whether and to what extent the unique Italian style of law has survived the pressures of European unification, American influence, and the globalization of law and society in the intervening period. The Italian Legal System, Second Edition is an important and stimulating resource for those with specific interest in Italy and those with a more general interest in comparative law and the globalization process.

From 1938 until 1943 - before the German occupation and accompanying Holocaust - Fascist Italy drafted and enforced a comprehensive set of anti-Semitic laws. Notwithstanding later rationalizations, the laws were administered with a high degree of severity and resulted in serious damage to the Italian Jewish community. Written from the perspective of an American legal scholar, this book constitutes the first truly comprehensive survey of the Race Laws in the English language. Based on an exhaustive review of Italian legal, administrative and judicial sources, together with archives of the Italian Jewish community, Professor Michael A. Livingston demonstrates the zeal but also the occasional ambivalence and contradictions with which the Race Laws were applied by the Italian legal order and ordinary citizens. Although frequently depressing, the history of the Race Laws contains numerous examples of personal courage and idealism, providing a useful and timely study of what happens when otherwise decent people are confronted with an evil and unjust legal order.

Tax scholars traditionally emphasize economics and assume that all tax systems can be evaluated in more or less the same way. By applying the insights of anthropology, sociology, and other social sciences, Michael A. Livingston demonstrates that tax systems frequently pursue different values and that the convergence of tax systems is frequently overstated. In Tax and Culture, he applies these insights to specific countries, such as China and India, and specific tax issues, including progressivity, tax avoidance, and the emerging area of environmental taxation. Livingston concludes that the concept of a global tax culture is, in many cases, merely a reflection of Western hegemony, and is unlikely to survive the changes implicit in the rise of non-Western nations and cultures.

The Nordic Model was originally understood as a compromise between Western and Soviet systems. The Soviet Union has been gone for a generation, but the Nordic Model survives. Much of this has to do with the Model's change from an economic to a largely cultural model. In particular the Model has come to emphasize human (especially women's) rights; environmental consciousness; and cultural innovation. While these each contain an element of fantasy, they retain sufficient substance to provide encouragement to 'progressive' circles in the United States, United Kingdom, and other countries. Important in its own right, the Nordic Model provides a fascinating case study of the transmission of goods and ideas between different regions, and the ability of a small and out of the way region to maintain its own identity in a globalized world.

The Nordic Model was originally understood as a compromise between Western and Soviet systems. The Soviet Union has been gone for a generation, but the Nordic Model survives. Much of this has to do with the Model's change from an economic to a largely cultural model. In particular the Model has come to emphasize human (especially women's) rights; environmental consciousness; and cultural innovation. While these each contain an element of fantasy, they retain sufficient substance to provide encouragement to 'progressive' circles in the United States, United Kingdom, and other countries. Important in its own right, the Nordic Model provides a fascinating case study of the transmission of goods and ideas between different regions, and the ability of a small and out of the way region to maintain its own identity in a globalized world.