A Life of H.L.A. Hart: The Nightmare and the Noble Dream
| Author | Stefan Collini |
| Published date | 01 January 2006 |
| Date | 01 January 2006 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.2006.00579_1.x |
REVIEWS
Nicola Lacey,A Life of H.L.A. Hart:The Nightmare and the Noble Dream,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 422pp, hb d25.00.
In 1945, Herbert Hart was a 38 year-old London barrister who had spent the pre-
vious six years largely working in military intelligence. What could be more
obvious, then, than that he should be thought the perfect c andidate for a full-time
teaching position at Oxford in philosophy, a subject with which he had had no
sustained connection since it formed part (though only part) of his undergraduate
degree sixteen years earlier? Similarly, in 1952 Hart was a 45 year-old philosophy
tutor who had by that point published only three essays and two book-
reviews. Self-evidently, he was the ideal man to elect to Oxford’s Professorship
of Jurisprudence.
By the standards prevailing at the beginning of the 21st century, these two
appointments are bound to seem scandalous, perhaps even barely intelligible.Yet
they launched the academic career of the manwhose work had perhaps a greater
impact on the philosophyof law in the English-speaking world in the 20th cen-
tury than that of any other, more conventionallyquali¢ed, ¢gure:Hart’sThe Con-
cept of Law, published nine years after taking up the chair, has been described as
simply‘the most importantbook about law tohave been written’ in the 20th cen-
tury. In themselves, the circumstances of these two appointments already hint at
why a biography of this hugely in£uential ¢gure might have much to o¡er. But
they also suggest why a purely biographical focus will struggle to account ade-
quately for this striking trajectory. For we are dealing here with a prize example
of an academic class at the apogee of its intellectual con¢dence and social stand-
ing, a case that cries out for exploration in historical and collective terms. That,
however, would be to undertake the kind of analytical and comparative enquiry
that can only be lightly touched upon in a biography ambitious to enjoy a pub-
lishing success beyond the con¢nes of a specialist readership.
Academics are, for the most part, very unpromising subjects for biographies,
especially biographies partly aimed at this wider audience.The uneventful soli-
tude that generated the work by which they made their mark yields little narra-
table material, and in many cases the signi¢cance of the work can only be fully
appreciatedby a small groupof fellow-specialists. These defectsas subjects forbio-
graphy can, it is true, be partially o¡set by other characteristics not unknown
among this species: a rich and well-documented sexual life, preferably with peo-
ple already familiarto readers forother reasons;a prominent role in publiclife and
debate beyond the con¢nes of their discipline; a penchant for writing, and keep-
ing, self-revealing letters or diaries. Hart scarcely displayed the ¢rst of these,
though his limitations in this respect are perhaps more than made up for by the
enthusiastic sexual bohemianism of his energetic and colourful wife, the historian
rThe Modern LawReview Limited 2006
Published by BlackwellPublishing, 9600 Garsington Road,Oxford OX4 2DQ,UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
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