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  3. Evolution and the Common Law
  • Cited by 26
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    • Publisher:
      Cambridge University Press
      Publication date:
      04 December 2009
      04 April 2005
      ISBN:
      9780511610394
      9780521849685
      9780521614917
      DOI:
      https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511610394
      Dimensions:
      (234 x 156 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.533kg, 306 Pages
      Dimensions:
      (234 x 156 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.425kg, 306 Pages
      • Subjects:
      Law: General Interest, Law, Philosophy, Political Philosophy
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    Subjects:
    Law: General Interest, Law, Philosophy, Political Philosophy
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    Book description

    This book offers a radical challenge to accounts of the common law's development. Contrary to received jurisprudential wisdom, it maintains there is no grand theory which will explain satisfactorily the dynamic interactions of change and stability in the common law's history. Offering original readings of Charles Darwin's and Hans-Georg Gadamer's works, the book shows that law is a rhetorical activity that can only be properly appreciated in its historical and political context; tradition and transformation are locked in a mutually reinforcing but thoroughly contingent embrace. In contrast to the dewy-eyed offerings of much contemporary work, it demonstrates that, like life, law is an organic process (i.e., events are the products of functional and localized causes) rather than a miraculous one (i.e., events are the result of some grand plan or intervention). In short, common law is a perpetual work-in-progress - evanescent, dynamic, messy, productive, tantalising, and bottom-up.

    Reviews

    '…it does…provide for an interesting read which will be able to appeal, I think not only to Critical Legal studies enthusiasts but also to otherwise inclined legal scholars.'

    Source: Social and Legal Studies

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