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After Secular Law

Winnifred Fallers Sullivan, Robert A. Yelle, and Mateo Taussig-Rubbo (eds)

Many people today place great hope in law as a vehicle for the transformation of society and accept that law is autonomous, universal, and above all, secular. Yet recent scholarship has called into ... More

Many people today place great hope in law as a vehicle for the transformation of society and accept that law is autonomous, universal, and above all, secular. Yet recent scholarship has called into question the simplistic narrative of a separation between law and religion and blurred the boundaries between these two categories, enabling new accounts of their relation that do not necessarily either collapse them together or return law to a religious foundation. This book gives special attention to the secularism of law, exploring how law became secular, the phenomenology of the legal secular, and the challenges that lingering religious formations and other aspects of globalization pose for modern law's self-understanding. Bringing together scholars with a variety of perspectives and orientations, it provides a deeper understanding of the interconnections between law and religion and the unexpected histories and anthropologies of legal secularism in a globalizing modernity.Less

Calculating Promises: The Emergence of Modern American Contract Doctrine

Roy Kreitner

This book is a history of contract law in the United States around the turn of the twentieth century. It details shifts in our conception of contract by juxtaposing scholarly accounts of contract ... More

This book is a history of contract law in the United States around the turn of the twentieth century. It details shifts in our conception of contract by juxtaposing scholarly accounts of contract with case law, and shows how the cases exhibit conflicts for which scholarship offers just one of many possible answers. Breaking with conventional wisdom, the book argues that our current understanding of contract is not the outgrowth of gradual refinements of a centuries-old idea. Rather, contract as we now know it was shaped by a revolution in private law undertaken toward the end of the nineteenth century, when legal scholars established calculating promisors as the centerpiece of their notion of contract. The book maintains that the revolution in contract thinking is best understood in a frame of reference wider than the rules governing the formation and enforcement of contracts. That frame of reference is a cultural negotiation over the nature of the individual subject and the role of the individual in a society undergoing transformation. Areas of central concern include the enforceability of promises to make gifts; the relationship of contracts to speculation and gambling; and the problem of incomplete contracts.Less

Hegel's Laws: The Legitimacy of a Modern Legal Order

William E. Conklin

This book serves as an introduction to Hegel's ideas on the nature of law. It examines whether state-centric domestic and international laws are binding upon autonomous individuals. The author also ... More

This book serves as an introduction to Hegel's ideas on the nature of law. It examines whether state-centric domestic and international laws are binding upon autonomous individuals. The author also explores why Hegel assumes that this arrangement is more civilized than living in a stateless culture. The book takes the reader through different structures of legal consciousness, from the private law of property, contract, and crimes to intentionality, the family, the role of the state, and international law. The author introduces Hegel's vocabulary, and contrasts Hegel's issues and arguments with contemporary legal philosophers. The book's interdisciplinary focus opens up Hegel's legal philosophy, providing a background to forms of legal consciousness for a wide audience. Addressing whether Hegel succeeds in his endeavor to explain why laws are binding, the author comments directly on contemporary constitutional and international law, and reveals how Hegel's ideas on law stand up in the world today.Less

Latin American Lawyers: A Historical Introduction

Rogelio Perez-Perdomo

This book provides a history of the intellectual training and social placement of lawyers in Latin America. The book examines the Roman legal roots of the Latin American tradition and traces the ... More

This book provides a history of the intellectual training and social placement of lawyers in Latin America. The book examines the Roman legal roots of the Latin American tradition and traces the development of legal education and practice in Latin America from the sixteenth century to the present. The main themes in the book are the relationship between lawyers and power, the place of lawyers in social stratification, the role of law and lawyers in building nations and maintaining elite power, the role of law schools, and the main intellectual trends in legal thought.Less

Shaping the Common Law: From Glanvill to Hale, 1188-1688

Thomas Garden Barnes

Allen D. Boyer (ed.)

This book discusses the contributions of great common-law jurists and singular documents—namely the Magna Carta and the Laws and Liberties of Massachusetts—that have shaped common law, from its ... More

This book discusses the contributions of great common-law jurists and singular documents—namely the Magna Carta and the Laws and Liberties of Massachusetts—that have shaped common law, from its origins in twelfth-century England to its arrival in the American colonies. Featured jurists include such widely recognized figures as Glanvill, Francis Bacon, Sir Edward Coke, and John Selden, as well as less-known but influential writers like Richard Hooker, Michael Dalton, William Hudson, and Sir Matthew Hale. Across the essays, the jurists' personalities are given voice, the context of time and events made clear, and the continuing impact of the texts emphasized. Taken as a whole, the book offers a simple reverence for the achievements of these men and law books, and a deep respect for the role historical events have played in the development of the common law.Less

Trial of Modernity: Judicial Reform in Early Twentieth-Century China, 1901-1937

Xiaoqun Xu

This book examines the Chinese judicial system and its operations in the Republican era, filling a gap in the scholarship on modern China, Chinese law, Chinese legal history, and comparative law. It ... More

This book examines the Chinese judicial system and its operations in the Republican era, filling a gap in the scholarship on modern China, Chinese law, Chinese legal history, and comparative law. It offers an analysis of how judicial reform initiatives were envisioned and pursued by the central government from 1901 through 1937, how the various initiatives were, or failed to be, implemented at the provincial and county levels, and how the reform impacted judicial practices and power relationships in local society. The book sheds light on the reach of the Chinese state, and on the complex interactions between the judicial field and administrative field within the state system, and between them and local society. In that context, it illuminates what judicial modernity actually meant for the Chinese state and society, and why irregularities, abuses, corruption, and informal practices continued in spite of the reform.Less