BOOK REVIEW
METHODS OF COMPARATIVE LAW
Edited by Pier Giuseppe Monateri
Edward Elgar Publications Ltd
ISBN: 978 1 84980 252 9
www.e-elgar.com
COMPARATIVE LAW --EXPLORING A CONTINUALLY EVOLVING FIELD OF ENQUIRY
An appreciation by Phillip Taylor MBE and Elizabeth Taylor of Richmond Green Chambers
Recently published by Edward Elgar Publishing, 'Methods of Comparative Law' presents a collection of some of the most significant exploratory and definitive treatises on the often complex and wide-ranging area of comparative law.
Within one convenient volume, it brings together the work of no less than nineteen academics and scholars from top universities and law faculties worldwide, spanning an amazing range of specialties and disciplines.
The depth and breadth of erudition on the part of each contributor is nothing if not impressive. Numerous avenues are explored down the pathways of, for example, the history of law, the philosophy of law (jurisprudence) and the interplay and overlap between these disciplines and others, including economics in particular.
Here's just one example of these intriguing excursions down a particular pathway of enquiry and we quote: 'In recent years a new generation of literature, developed at the interface of law, economics and public choice theory, provides an alternative hypothesis regarding the evolution of the common law.' Agree with this or not, the operative word here, we believe is 'interface' and as the title indicates, we are talking here about inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary research.
If this sounds a little abstruse, it is nonetheless intriguing and has a number of practical applications in law, certainly, as well as economics and public policy.
As the editor, Pier Monateri explains, the structure of the book including the sequence of the chapters, as well as the selection of individual essays, is 'designed to focus on the evolving shape of legal "comparativism".
The result is, he adds, 'an accessible manual from which scholars, students and practitioners can benefit.'
Extensively footnoted throughout, the book takes its place as part of Elgar's 'Research Handbooks in Comparative Law' series -- the first of its kind, apparently, to cover such a broad range of comparative law issues. The orientation is global; the approach scholarly. This is a book which will no doubt interest the worldwide community of law academics and academic lawyers. Offering up some of the latest thinking on this subject, it contains much food for thought. The publication date is 2012.
