Interdisciplinary Study and Comparative Law

"This book, which is dedicated to the memory of distinguished scholar Professor Simon Roberts, is a collection of essays exploring themes and issues in the relationship between comparative legal studies and other disciplines in the social sciences and humanities. Law does not exist in a vacuum, and an appreciation of the social, cultural and other factors affecting it may often be helpful for a sounder understanding of its nature and significance, especially when law is considered in a broader, comparative, context. Insights drawn from other disciplines may therefore be especially appropriate for comparative legal studies, but the use of those insights raises various questions, suchs as the manner in which other disciplines--given their own distinctive concerns and modes of analysis--characterise the nature and significance of law and legal institutions. Interdisciplinary study also encourages us to ask how cognate disciplines and their arguments are seen, used and maltreated in comparative legal studies, as well as the pitfalls which await scholars from other disciplines who venture into law. The essays in this collection offer a unique contribution to these and other aspects of the use of interdisciplinarity in comparative law"--Back cover.