| Description |
xiii, 266 pages ; 24 cm |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 243-257) and index. |
| Contents |
Preface : a theory of justice? -- 1. Introductory themes : images of evenness -- The scales of justice -- Just about words -- 2. The talion -- Getting even? -- The compensation principle -- The euphony of eyes and teeth -- 3. The talionic mint : funny money -- Body parts and money -- Paying gods in bodies and blood -- Cutting up bread, cutting up the body -- 4. The proper price of property in an eye -- Property rules and liability rules -- Life is cheap? -- 5. Teaching a lesson : pain and poetic justice -- Instruction on feeling another's pain -- Deuteronomy's artful talionic lesson -- Coda : mixing metaphors : paying back and paying for -- 6. A pound of flesh -- Shearing fleece and eating (human) flesh -- Have mercy -- The humanizing force of vengefulness -- 7. Remember me : mnemonics, debts (of blood), and the making of the person -- Burning in the memory -- Bloody tokens and the relics of the unavenged dead -- Remembering the dead and not forgetting oneself -- The happy dead -- Grief, guilt, and tormenting ghosts -- The mnemonics of wergeld and the fragility of well-being -- 8. Dismemberment and price lists -- Slave values -- The sum of the parts -- Flipping the bird -- 9. Of hands, hospitality, personal space, and holiness -- Hospitality and Mund -- Hands and reach -- Wholly holy -- 10. Satisfaction not guaranteed -- Release of pressure, or filling the void up full? -- Serving up revenge : bitter or sweet -- The mind of the vengeance target : regret, remorse, cluelessness -- Killing him or keeping him alive for scoffing, and other fine points -- 11. Comparing values and the ranking game -- The politics of comparing values, or what's eating the incommensuralists -- The ranking game -- Ranking at a Viking feast -- 12. Filthy lucre and holy dollars -- Dirty dollars and the making of pricelessness -- Buying back and the sacred -- Everything for sale -- Conclusion. |
| Subject |
Lex talionis -- History.
|
|
Law, Ancient.
|
|
Customary law.
|
| ISBN |
9780521856805 hardback |
|
0521856809 hardback |
|
