There is something quite puzzling about the global conversation on jurisprudence. On the one hand, jurisprudence is supposed to deal with abstract questions concerning the nature, structure, and distinctive features of the law. These questions are not tightly associated with, or dependent on, the particular legal practices in one jurisdiction or another. But, on the other hand, it seems that jurisprudents are tacitly affected by their background institutional context: there is an evident divide between theorizing about the law in the civil law world and in the common law world. Jurisprudence in the Mirror: The Common Law World Meets the Civil Law World systematically presents the major achievements of contemporary civil law jurisprudence to the common law world and bridges the gap in analytic jurisprudence as it is currently practiced in the two traditions. The volume seeks to bring different voices to the table and overcome the cultural and linguistic divides that have created barriers in philosophical exchanges. The book's structure is dialogical: it includes twelve essays written by prominent and influential jurisprudents from the civil law world, each followed by a response by a jurisprudent from the common law world. This approach highlights what the two worlds share, where they part ways, and why. The varied contributions reveal how their respective legal traditions shape fundamental legal concepts and jurisprudential debates and will be invaluable to readers from both the civil and common law worlds.

This text addresses a group of influential literary works that reflect momentous crises in the evolution of Western law, including the transition from prelegal to legal society, the Christianization of Germanic customary law, the conflict between customary & Roman law, & the modern rise of skepticism.

Law is generally understood to be a mirror of society that functions to maintain social order. Focusing on this general understanding, this text conducts a survey of Western legal and social theories about law and its relationship within society.

Now in a new edition with extensive updates by Peter Karsten, The Magic Mirror chronicles American law from its English origins to the present. It offers comprehensive treatment of twentieth-century developments and sets American law and legal institutions in the broad context of social,economic, and political events, weaving together themes from the history of both constitutional and private law. This edition of The Magic Mirror features additional coverage of resistance to law through U.S. history, the customary law of self-governing bodies, and Native Americans. It also hasupdated coverage for law in society, the legal implications of social change in areas such as criminal justice, the rights of women, blacks, the family, and children. It further examines regional differences in American legal culture, the creation of the administrative and security states, thedevelopment of American federalism, and the rise of the legal profession. The Magic Mirror pays close attention to the evolution of substantive law categories--such as contracts, torts, negotiable instruments, real property, trusts and estates, and civil procedure--and addresses the intellectualevolution of American law, surveying movements such as legal realism and critical legal studies. The authors conclude that over its history American law has been remarkably fluid, adapting in form and substance to each successive generation without ever fully resolving the underlying social andeconomic conflicts that first provoke demands for legal change.

Kelsen, Hans. What is Justice? Justice, Law and Politics in the Mirror of Science. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1957. [vi], 397 pp. Reprinted 2000 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. ISBN 1-58477-101-1. Cloth. New. $95. * Through the lens of science, Kelsen proposes a dynamic theory of natural law, examines Platonic and Aristotelian doctrines of justice, the idea of justice as found in the holy scriptures, and defines justice as "...that social order under whose protection the search for truth can prosper. 'My' justice, then, is the justice of freedom, the justice of peace, the justice of democracy-the justice of tolerance." (p. 24).

This volume addresses the pluralistic identity of the legal order. It argues that the mutual reflexivity of the different ways society perceives law and law perceives society eclipses the unique formal identity of written law. It advances a distinctive approach to the plural ways in which legal cultures work in a modern society, through the metaphor of the mirror. As a mirror of society, it distinguishes between the structure and function of legal culture within the legal system, and the external representation of law in society. This duality is further problematized in relation to the increasing transnationalisation of law. Based on a multi-level interpretation of the concept of legal culture, the work is divided into three parts: the first addresses the mutual reflections of social and legal norms that support a pluralist representation of internal legal cultures, the second concentrates on the external legal cultures that constantly enable pragmatic adjustments of the legal order to its social environment, and the third concludes the book with a theoretical discussion of the issues presented.

The Sachsenspiegel, or Saxon Mirror, compiled in 1235 by Eike von Repgow, may be said to mark the beginning of vernacular German jurisprudence. For the first time, Maria Dobozy offers an English translation of this influential lawbook, the oldest, and most important, set of customary law in the German language. This lawbook with its amendments marks a major shift in the history of German law from purely oral authority and transmission to a written documentation that allowed greater consistency in legal procedure. The reception of the lawbook was vast. It was rapidly adapted across Germany, as the four hundred manuscript versions demonstrate. Beyond Germany, it was copied as the paradigm for lawbooks in Prussia, Silesia, Poland, Ukraine, Hungary, and Bohemia. These codes of law became the standard for over three hundred years. The Sachsenspiegel contains a compilation of the legal practices at the time in Saxony, an ethnically mixed territory, and encompasses the legal customs and procedures that regulated the daily life of peasants and landlords. It is a multidimensional resource for anyone seeking insight into German and Central European culture in art, literature, linguistics, literacy, law, ethnic diversity, women, and the Bible.