This anthology examines Love's Labours Lost from a variety of perspectives and through a wide range of materials. Selections discuss the play in terms of historical context, dating, and sources; character analysis; comic elements and verbal conceits; evidence of authorship; performance analysis; and feminist interpretations. Alongside theater reviews, production photographs, and critical commentary, the volume also includes essays written by practicing theater artists who have worked on the play. An index by name, literary work, and concept rounds out this valuable resource.
The roots of modern Western legal institutions and concepts go back nine centuries to the Papal Revolution, when the Western church established its political and legal unity and its independence from emperors, kings, and feudal lords. Out of this upheaval came the Western idea of integrated legal systems consciously developed over generations and centuries. Harold J. Berman describes the main features of these systems of law, including the canon law of the church, the royal law of the major kingdoms, the urban law of the newly emerging cities, feudal law, manorial law, and mercantile law. In the coexistence and competition of these systems he finds an important source of the Western belief in the supremacy of law. Written simply and dramatically, carrying a wealth of detail for the scholar but also a fascinating story for the layman, the book grapples with wide-ranging questions of our heritage and our future. One of its main themes is the interaction between the Western belief in legal evolution and the periodic outbreak of apocalyptic revolutionary upheavals. Berman challenges conventional nationalist approaches to legal history, which have neglected the common foundations of all Western legal systems. He also questions conventional social theory, which has paid insufficient attention to the origin of modern Western legal systems and has therefore misjudged the nature of the crisis of the legal tradition in the twentieth century.
In The American Indian in Western Legal Thought Robert Williams, a legal scholar and Native American of the Lumbee tribe, traces the evolution of contemporary legal thought on the rights and status of American Indians and other indiginous tribal peoples. Beginning with an analysis of the medieval Christian crusading era and its substantive contributions to the West's legal discourse of h̀eathens' and ìnfidels', this study explores the development of the ideas that justified the New World conquests of Spain, England and the United States. Williams shows that long-held notions of the legality of European subjugation and colonization of s̀avage' and b̀arbarian' societies supported the conquests in America. Today, he demonstrates, echoes of racist and Eurocentric prejudices still reverberate in the doctrines and principles of legal discourse regarding native peoples' rights in the United States and in other nations as well.--
Introduction to and survey of the field of law and society. Includes interdisciplinary perspectives on law from sociology, criminology, cultural anthropology, political science, social psychology, and economics.
This text for library and information science courses on law librarianship introduces students to the rapidly evolving world of law librarianship. Individual chapters provide a concise treatment of such specialized topics as the history of law librarianship, international law, and government documents. Standard topics are dealt with as they apply to the law library, including collection development, public services, technical processing, administration, technology, and consortia.
The cultural diversity characterizing international arbitration today is as much a source of enrichment as it is sometimes a source of practical difficulties affecting both the arbitration procedure and the application of substantive law. Consequently, it is becoming clearer that the critical project for international arbitration in the immediate future will be how to best answer the fundamental question of cultural pluralism. This book presents an informative and well-argued discussion on many aspects of international arbitration, clarifying the main procedural and substantive similarities and differences between different legal systems around the world, focusing not only on common and civil law traditions but also the role played by regional legal traditions including Islamic law and African perspectives. With contributions from fifty arbitrators, counsel, and academics representing every region of the world where international arbitration has secured a foothold, the volume consolidates and synthesizes a series of discussions sponsored by the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators that took place in Dubai, Johannesburg, and Paris in 2017. The essays identify and address the cultural distinctions that affect the key ever-present factors which have forged the character of modern international arbitration, such as the following: the seat of the arbitration and the legal regime to which the arbitration is attached; due process, which has different and specific meanings in different national legal systems; international standards such as international public policy, illegality, arbitrability, and sanctions; the immunity of international arbitrators; form of presentation of evidence, production of documents, oral and written submissions, and expert evidence; the specific context of international investment arbitration; disputes in specific industries or legal areas (telecommunications, construction, mining, intellectual property); the role of national judges and the legal traditions they embrace throughout and after arbitration proceedings; how to incorporate more conciliatory cultural traditions, which are notably shared in many African and Asian countries; and training and opportunities for the next generation in international arbitration. The book is replete with tools and recommendations to ensure synergy and harmony between the different legal traditions that coexist in today’s arbitral proceedings. All users of arbitration, whether the arbitrators themselves, lawyers involved as counsel for parties, or judges applying arbitration law, will greatly appreciate this matchless elucidation of the different systems and alternative ways of presenting the divergent procedures and ways of conducting international arbitrations. The book’s immeasurable value to arbitration academics goes without saying.
In this age of globalization many legal experts see evidence of swift global movement toward an eventual single "world legal system." Yet, the trend to political and economic integration in some parts of the world is matched by the trend to disintegration in others, where strong cultural and political resistance to external influences exists. Asia-Pacific Legal Development traces current and prospective developments in several legal systems of the Asia-Pacific region to make sense of these trends and counter-trends. The contributing authors represent a wide variety of specialist expertise, both "public" and "private," and together they encompass the three sectors that constitute a modern system of formal law: the economic, the behavioural, and the civic. Taking into account the opinions and perspectives of both indigenous and non-indigenous experts on topics ranging from prostitution to constitutional law, the book surveys how several ASEAN nations, as well as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, are confronting social, economic, and legal change. In the first three parts, chapters are grouped along general sectoral lines to cover economic, civic, and behavioural themes, while in the fourth, cross-sectoral contexts are addressed. With the introduction and concluding chapter, the editors provide an overall integrating framework as well as provocative insights into trends in legal development in the Asia-Pacific region, and on comparative legal research and writing in general. Asia-Pacific Legal Development is not only an exemplary model for cooperative and comparative legal research and scholarly pluralism, but also a rich study of the increasingly relevant issue of convergence and divergence of legal systems, with a unique Asian focus.
