From the perspective of a comparative history of legal doctrines, Amalia Kessler offers a particularly stimulating study of the emergence in the nineteenth century of the dichotomy between accusatorial and inquisitorial proceedings. While these terms continue to be the subject of lively debate in the field of comparative law (in particular to contrast or reconcile the common law and civil law traditions), research on the introduction of these two categories of criminal procedure into the books of legal scholars has been lacking until now.