Aboriginal Societies and the Common Law makes an important contribution to scholarship on the history of Aboriginal peoples and the common law legal system. Indeed, this weighty tome verges on the magisterial in its comprehensiveness and depth of analysis. Paul McHugh meticulously traces the encounter between the common law and the Aboriginal peoples of North America and Australasia (Australia and New Zealand), beginning from the early settlement of the New World to the close of the 20th century. Because of their "strong historical correspondence," McHugh favoured a comparative approach that looked at these jurisdictions together. Aboriginal Societies and the Common Law is significant because of the way McHugh carefully illuminates that complex history across several jurisdictions through the lens of the core themes of sovereignty, status and self-determination. The book is a culmination of many years of assiduous scholarship and teaching by McHugh on Aboriginal law.