Al andar se hace camino
| Author | André‐Jean Arnaud |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6478.00265 |
| Date | 01 September 2003 |
| Published date | 01 September 2003 |
JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY
VOLUME 30, NUMBER 3, SEPTEMBER 2003
ISSN: 0263-323X, pp. 441±52
Al andar se hace camino
1
Andre
¨-Jean Arnaud
*
This article is a contribution to the occasional series dealing with a
major book that influenced the author. Previous contributors include
Stewart Macaulay, John Griffith, William Twining, Carol Harlow,
Geoffrey Bindman, and Harry Arthurs.
It is quite a task to write about a single book that affected my career and
judgement! I confess that I was just a little jealous on reading John Griffith's
description of his discovery, while still new to the career, of an author who
influenced him for life.
2
I would like to have stimulated the reader by using
terms like `turning point' or `shift'. Heureusement, or perhaps
malheureusement, my trajectory appears with hindsight more like that of a
long, peaceful river. Not boring, but de
Âfinitivement linear.
To be truthful, I cannot cite just one book that made for a real turning
point in my life as a scholar. Unless it was The Alexandria Quartet. That
ability to distance himself that led Lawrence Durrell to take up the same tale
from various points of view quickly became a constant interest of mine and
made The Quartet a bedside companion. It was thus that I began to want to
view a single subject ± law ± from different perspectives. Originally a
historian, I moved across to philosophy, then took up a billet in legal theory
before, dissatisfied with the latter, moving into the sociology of law. As
Griffith would have it, during this pilgrimage I have come across many
writings that have truly `marked' me. A reading of Decretum Gratiani taught
441
ßBlackwell Publishing Ltd 2003, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and
350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
*Director of Research Emeritus, Centre for the Theory of Law, Universite
Â
de Paris 10-Nanterre, Codirector of REDS (European Network on Law and
Society) at the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, Paris, Director of GEDIM
(GlobalizacËaÄo Econo
Ãmica e Direitos no Mercosul / MOST Programme,
UNESCO)
My thanks to Alan Bradshaw for his splendid translation from the French, and to Phil
Thomas for his support in developing this paper.
1 `The way is made by walking it . ..' Antonio Machado, Proverbios y Cantares, XXIX
(1929).
2 J. Griffith, `A Pilgrim's Progress' (1995) 22 J. of Law and Society 410±15.
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