英美历史文化概况（英文版）_董晓波_9787566312051

　　《英美历史文化概况（英文版）/展望（Prospect）全国高等院校英语专业系列精品教材》从不同方面向中国学生介绍了世界上主要的两个英语国家——英国和美国的历史与文化现象。
　　《英美历史文化概况（英文版）/展望（Prospect）全国高等院校英语专业系列精品教材》共分两个篇章，分别是英国篇和美国篇，这两个篇章又分别包含10个章节，即涵盖了英美两国历史上的重大时期，如工业革命、世界大战、经济大萧条等，又涉及两国文化的方方面面；宏观方面涵盖了领土与环境、政体、法律、节庆日、黑人奴隶制、宗教与信仰等，微观方面则包含了文学、艺术、教育、音乐、电影、科技、城市等大量内容，可谓是英美两国历史文化的一部缩影。

　　English law
　　"English law" is a term of art. It refers to the legal system administered by the courts in England and Wales, which rule on both civil and criminal matters. English law is renowned as being the mother of the common law, and is based on those principles. English law can be described as having its own distinct legal doctrine, distinct from civil law legal systems since 11 89.
　　There has been no major codification of the law, and subject to statute, the law is developed by judges in court, applying statute, precedent and common sense to the facts before them, to give explanatory judgments of the relevant legal principles, which are reported and binding in future similar cases. In the early centuries, the justices and judges were responsible for adapting the Writsystem to meet everyday needs, applying a mixture of precedent and common sense to build up a body of internally consistent law, e.g., the Law Merchant began in the Pie-Powder Courts see Court of Piepowder （a corruption of the French "pieds-poudres" or "dusty feet", meaning ad hoc marketplace courts）. As Parliament developed in strength and, subject to the doctrine of separation of powers, legislation gradually overtook judicial law-making, so that today judges are only able to innovate in certain very narrowly-defined areas. T;me before 1189 was defined in 1276 as being time immemorial.
　　The courts of England and Wales are headed by the Senior Courts of England and Wales, consisting of the Court of Appeal, the High Court of Justice （for civil cases） and the Crown Court （for criminal cases）. The Supreme Court is the highest court in the land for both criminal and civil appeal cases in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland and any decision it makes is binding on every other court in the same jurisdiction, and ofien has persuasive effect in its other jurisdictions. On appeal, a court may overrule the decisions of its inferior courts, such as county courts （civil） and magistrates' courts （criminal）. The High Court may also quash on judicial review both administrative decisions of the Government and delegated legislation. The ultimate body of appeal for all criminal and civil cases in England and Wales （and Northern Ireland, and for all civil cases in Scots law） is the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, which took over this function from the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords （usually just referred to as "The House of Lords"） in October 2009.
　　After the Acts of Union, in 1 707 English law became one of two legal systems in different parts of the same, united, kingdom and has been influenced by Scots law, most notably in the development and integration of the law merchant by Lord Mansfield and in time the development of the law of negligence. Scottish influence may have influenced the abolition of the forms of action in the nineteenth century and extensive procedural reforms in the twentieth. Northern Irish legal system The law of Northern Ireland is a common law system. It is administered by the courts of Northern Ireland, with ultimate appeal to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in both civil and criminal matters. The law of Northern Ireland is closely similar to English law, the rules of common law having been imported into the Kingdom of Ireland under English rule. However there are still important differences.
　　The sources of the law of Northern Ireland are English common law, and statute law. Of the latter, statutes of the Parliaments of Ireland, of the United Kingdom and of Northern Ireland are in force, and latterly statutes of the devolved Assembly. The courts of Northern Ireland are headed by the Court of Judicature of Northern Ireland, consisting of the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal, the Northern Ireland High Court of Justice and the Northern Ireland Crown Court. Below that are county courts and magistrates' courts.
　　Scots law
　　Scots law is a unique legal system with an ancient basis in Roman law. Grounded in uncodified civil law dating back to the Corpus juris Civi/is, it also features elements of common law with medieval sources. Thus Scotland has a pluralistic, or 'mixed', legal system, comparable to that of South Africa, and, to a lesser degree, the partly codified pluralistic systems of Louisiana and Quebec. Since the Acts of Union, in 1707, it has shared a legislature with the rest of the United Kingdom. Scotland and England & Wales each retained fundamentally different legal systems, but the Union brought English influence on Scots law and vice versa. In recent years Scots law has also been affected by both European law under the Treaty of Rome and the establishment of the Scottish Parliament which may pass legislation within its areas of legislative competence as detailed by the Scotland Act 1998.
　　The chief courts are the Court of Session, for civil cases, and the High Court of Justiciary, for criminal cases. The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom serves as the highest court of appeal for civil cases under Scots law, with leave to appeal from the Court of Session not required as a general rule. Sheriff courts deal with most civil and criminal cases including conducting criminal trials with a jury, known as sheriff solemn court, or with a sheriff and no jury, known as sheriff summary Court. The sheriff courts provide a local court service with 49 sheriff courts organised across six sheriffdoms. The Scots legal system is unique in having three possible verdicts for a criminal trial: "guilty", "not guilty" and "not proven". Both "not guilty" and "not proven" result in an acquittal with no possibility of retrial.
　　The Cabinet Secretary for Justice is the member of the Scottish Government responsible for the police, the courts and criminal justice, and the Scottish Prison Service, which manages the prisons in Scotland. Though the level of recorded crime in 2007/08 has fallen to the lowest for 25 years, the prison population, at over 8,000, is hitting record levels and is well above design capacity.
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