The Cambridge Companion to Comparative Law [Hardcover]

The book delves into the 'deeper structures' of the world's legal systems, where law meets culture, politics and socio-economic factors.To understand a legal system, we first need to understand the cultural, political, socio-economic context which grounds and surrounds its law. This book aims to provide the reader with the fundamental knowledge of this dynamic relationship.To understand a legal system, we first need to understand the cultural, political, socio-economic context which grounds and surrounds its law. This book aims to provide the reader with the fundamental knowledge of this dynamic relationship.We can only claim to understand another legal system when we know the context surrounding the positive law in which lawyers are trained. To avoid ethnocentricity and superficiality, we must go beyond judicial decisions, doctrinal writings and the black-letter law of codes and statutes and probe the 'deeper structures' where law meets cultural, political, socio-economic factors. It is only when we acquire such awareness and knowledge of the critical factors affecting both the backgrounds and implications of rules that it becomes possible to control the present and possibly future developments of the world's legal institutions. This collection of essays aims to provide the reader with a fundamental understanding of the dynamic relationship between the law and its cultural, political and socio-economic context.Editors' preface. Diapositives v. movies: the inner dynamics of the law and its comparative account: a companion M. Bussani and U. Mattei; Part I. Knowing Comparative Law: 1. Comparative law and neighbouring disciplines M. Reimann; 2. Political ideology and comparative law Duncan Kennedy; 3. Economic analysis and comparative law N. Garoupa and T. Ginsburg; 4. Comparative law and anthropology Lawrence Rosen; 5. Comparative law and language B. Pozzo; Part II. Comparative Law Fields: 6. Comparative studies in private law (insights from a European point of view) l3ˆ