Hello. I am interested in learning more about this topic and am looking for suggestions for reading material on the topic. Broad overview stuff or specific looks at specific legal systems or anything in between. Open to both layperson reading or academic reading. I'm familiar with reading and writing about academic papers in economics and other social sciences so as long as the material isn't so full of jargon and niche concepts without elaboration that I need to literally be a lawyer or historian to understand what I'm reading I'm open to the suggestion. Thanks in advance!
Legal history is very wide, and you can have legal history that is closer to actual modern law and comparative law (written by jurists, usually) or legal history written from other perspectives with different focus (usually sociologists or historians, polsci dabbles in it as well).
I mention this because my own entryway and interest comes from being a law student primarily, secondarily also a polsci student and hobby interest in history. Thus my readings cover more the history of formal law and legal writing, whereas other approaches would have different focuses, for example looking at a law worked in the everyday life of actual people.
I do have some standard recommendations I tend to make in here of books I enjoyed myself and that I think function as decent introductory works:
Tamar Herzog (2018): A Short History of European Law Harvard University Press
Just very accessible and short. Written from a jurists perspective and focusing on the major developments leading to modern European law, it will give you a good overview of questions like why the common law and continental (civil) law systems differ, or why european states share so much law in general, or the influence of roman (and canon) law.
It's doesn't do anything fancy and won't explain how any single place or time works in any detail at all, but it's a good overview and introduction to the large questions. This book is also - unusually - quite well written and cheap.
Patrick Glenn (2014): Legal Traditions of the world 5th ed. Oxford University Press
Another very broad book, with a more comparative outlook than Tamar. Glenn divides the world into generalized "legal traditions" and tries to explain the background for this division. On some points the generalizations are perhaps a bit much, but it's again useful for the broad lines of more modern legal history and a good introduction to some basics of comparative law.
If you want other, or more specific, suggestions then I list some books I either enjoy or/and use for answering questions on my profile, and all my questions are sourced so if you see a question that interests you - you could look at the sources. Feel free to message in regards to any book as well.
My current reading is Chen and Fu (eds. 2020) Authoritarian legality in Asia, which seems good so far - if that's a topic that could interest you.