Book Review: Comparative Law: A Handbook
| Author | Jaakko Husa |
| DOI | 10.1177/1023263X0801500206 |
| Published date | 01 June 2008 |
| Date | 01 June 2008 |
15 MJ 2 (2008) 259
BOOK REVIEWS
Esin Örücü and David Nel ken (eds.), Comparative Law: a Handbook, Har t Publishing
2007, xii + 469 pages, paperback, £ 35, ISBN 1-84113-596-0
I
Long gone are the days when we had only few extensive books about comparative
law. e ver y memory of a past er a, when anyone with an interest in comparative law
was practically forced to read Zweigert and Kötz’s paradigmat ic An Introduction to
Comparative Law or Peter de Cru z’s Comparative Law in a Chang ing World, is now
fading. In the present climate, publications/ journals in the realm of comparative law/
transnational law are blooming, with new journals appearing in the eld like mushrooms
aer a rain in an autumn forest, confronting the comparative lawyer with a new dilemma:
there is so much to pick that one doe s not know where to tu rn to in order to ll up the
personal comparat ive-law-basket. But shou ld we genuinely rejoice at thi s development?
And, more i mportantly, how does one k now what to pick a nd what not to pick, i.e. are
there even poisonous mushrooms that one should avoid at all cost?
What is clear in any case is t hat t here is no consensus whatsoever of what one
should avoid. us, it seems that one nee ds a manua l that collec ts information on the
academic comparative law mushroom area from various sources and presents it in a
simple, convenient format. Indeed, if we are to send our students into the fascinat ing
comparative law woods, a compact reference book providing the essential information in
a given eld of study is required. Fortunately, we have such sources at our disposal today
that can b e of assistance in selec ting t he edible mushrooms (whatever one considers
these to be), leaving the harmf ul ones aside.
Over the pa st few years, several large works on the subject have been published.
Particula rly noteworthy are ambitious books like the Elgar Encyclopaedia of Comparative
Law ed ited by Jan Smits (2006) a nd e Oxford Handbook of C omparative Law edited
by Matthias Reimann and Reinhard Zimmer mann (2007). e Elgar Enc yclopaedia is a
thick opus consisting of more t han 800 pages, whereas the Oxford Handbo ok does even
better (or worse if you like), ending up with more tha n 1400 pages. Bot h are designed as
works of reference. Moreover, these thick hard covered books also look impressive on the
shelf and therefore also fu ll an i mportant aesthetic function. Both books incorporate
themes relevant to the discipline of comparative law (or compa rative legal studies if
you prefer this coining) and the y are utterly overlapping, e ven though there are (some)
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