Reviews
| Published date | 01 July 1997 |
| Date | 01 July 1997 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2230.t01-1-00103 |
REVIEWS
Ian Loveland,Constitutional Law: A Critical Introduction, London:
Butterworths, 1996, xxxiv + 685 pp, pb £19.95.
The subtitle of this volume and several remarks in its preface suggest that this book
may be directed at filling one of the two important gaps in the range of UK public
law textbooks. Despite the rapidly increasing number of books, there is still an
absence of a textbook properly designed for the modular world and of one which
operates from a critical perspective. Loveland’s Critical Introduction, with its
acknowledged origins within the apparently rather stodgy fare of the syllabus of
the University of London LL.B, is clearly not claiming the first of these two (not
necessarily incompatible) markets. It does, however, seem to have ambitions for
the second role.
The preface promises that the author has ‘tried to draw far more heavily on
sources in the areas of political science and political history than the authors of
most constitutional texts.’ It suggests that the book reflects a ‘realist’ or ‘socio-
legal’ approach to legal scholarship where it is ‘assumed that the constitution has a
story to tell, a story which is incomplete if shorn of its political and historical
components.’ Indeed, the preface even promises that ‘experienced readers will also
no doubt find some of the ideas advanced in the book rather unorthodox [and]
bizarre.’ This is certainly an exciting claim in this context. It is especially so when
coupled with the disclosure that the work is ‘written from a particular party
political standpoint’ and an assertion that the author regards ‘this country’s current
constitutional arrangements as entirely unsatisfactory’ (p v, my emphasis).
Some commentators may find it relatively easy to criticise the traditional
textbooks for evolving into further editions without seeing the need to revise
traditional categories and classifications. It may indeed be possible to complain
that some of the newer textbooks have adopted similar structures with apparently
little realisation that the cosy world of Westminster, where the destiny of the
nation was hammered out on the floor of the House of Commons, is now very
distant from the realities of public power at the end of the twentieth century.
However, it is quite another thing actually to produce a textbook that seeks to
replace the orthodoxy with a coherent, critical account, and at the sort of detailed
level where it can serve as a textbook with the competing needs of introducing
students to the subject and providing the degree of comprehensive coverage that
tradition apparently requires. While such a project may have been Professor
Loveland’s objective, his success, while highly laudable, has not been entirely
complete.
At one level the book works in so far as it is reasonably comprehensive and
perhaps more lively than many other textbooks. A comparison of the contents
pages of a number of leading textbooks shows that it at least touches base with
most of the issues that are covered by its more traditional competitors. (Although
the omission of any consideration of judicial review and other basic administrative
law ideas may disqualify the text from those institutions which require the
constitutional law course to serve as an introduction to administrative law too.)
Occasionally, the writing teeters dangerously on the brink of moving from a
textbook style to a more polemical one. If the reader shares similar views on, for
The Modern Law Review Limited 1997 (MLR 60:4, July). Published by Blackwell Publishers,
108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. 609
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