Prologue: Popping the Hood The previous two essays made the case for the Rule of Law and told the story of how it was extracted from power, one royal head at a time. This essay pops the hood: how does the machinery actually work? Why does an English contract differ from a French one, and does it matter? What exactly is a corporation, legally speaking? And what becomes of the Rule of Law in the one arena where there is no sovereign above the parties at all: the space between n

Prologue: Nobody Planned This In the previous essay we argued that the most potent invention in human history is the idea that even a king has to follow the rules. This essay tells the story of how that idea came about. Spoiler: nobody planned it. The Rule of Law was not handed down by philosophers, though philosophers later wrote elegant justifications and accepted the credit with good grace. It was extracted inch by inch, over four thousand years of mostly violent, iterativ

Prologue: The Idea That Shouldn't Exist The greatest invention in human history is not the wheel, the steam engine, or the internet. It is the idea that even the king must obey the rules. For almost all of human history, power worked differently. The strong took what they wanted; everyone else adapted. Rules certainly existed, but they applied mainly to those without armies. The ruler was not above the law because he occasionally ignored it. He was above the law because he wa