Book Reviews: The Anthropology of Law
| DOI | 10.1177/0964663915575630 |
| Date | 01 June 2015 |
| Published date | 01 June 2015 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
Social & Legal Studies
2015, Vol. 24(2) 313–328
Book Reviews
ª The Author(s) 2015
Reprints and permission:
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DOI: 10.1177/0964663915575630
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FERNANDA PIRIE, The Anthropology of Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Clarendon Law
Series, 2013, pp. 288, ISBN 9780199696857, £24.99 (pbk).
Even within a limited book review such as this, it is possible, I hope, to offer a long and a
short version. The short version of this review – the headline, if you like – is that
Fernanda Pirie has produced a hugely impressive and important piece of work for socio-
legal studies. It is a genuinely interdisciplinary study that takes on a foundational
question for our field: what is law? Her thesis, carefully constructed and defended, is pro-
vocative and, in my view, significant – both for its content and for the method by which
she produces it. Although it will be of interest to scholars well beyond sociolegal studies,
it is a book that deserves a great deal of attention within the field.
The long version of the review begins with some notes of surprise. On receiving the
latest offering from the Clarendon Law Series, I expected a sophisticated student text
introducing a young readership to the anthropology of law – something like a critical
though accessible review of the field that falls somewhere between an introductory over-
view and a monograph. Pirie’s book, though engaging and very accessible, is all mono-
graph. In retrospect, perhaps I should not have been surprised. The previous law and
society offering from the Clarendon Law Series (also by a Director of the Centre
for Socio-Legal Studies at Oxford University) was Denis Galligan’s Law in Modern
Society – another impressive text that might, nonetheless, have first year undergrad-
uates racing for the course transfer list.
But the element of surprise in Pirie’s book extends beyond its identity as a monograph
rather than a student text. The next note of surprise about The Anthropology of...
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