The Law, Culture and Society Research Cluster is interested in the following questions: how does a society conceptualize law, institutionalize law, and use law? How can historians compare legal systems and cultures? We consider legal history as a broad topic, covering everything from formal legal institutions (legislatures, courts, etc) to expanded social process through which formal institutions intersect with social structures, to legal cultures. As a group, we cover broad expanses of topography -- Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Africa, and of chronology -- from the ancient world to the twentieth century.