1 Throughout this review article I will use the term “comparative law” to denote the full discipline with as little exception as possible; the more particular intra-discipline approaches shall be referred to specifically.Google Scholar

2 Mitchel De S.-O.-l'E. Lasser, The Question of Understanding in Comparative Legal Studies: Traditions & Transitions, 197 (Legrand, Pierre & Munday, Roderick eds., 2003).Google Scholar

3 The debates on legal pluralism provide a good example of this. See, among others, John Griffiths, What Is Legal Pluralism?, 24 Journal of Legal Pluralism (J. of Leg. Pluralism) 1, 38 (1986); Merry, Sally Engle, Legal Pluralism, 22 Law & Society Review (Law & Soc'y Rev.) 869 (1988); and Tamanaha, Brian Z., A Non-Essentialist Version of Legal Pluralism, 27 Journal of Law & Society 296 (2000).Google Scholar

4 An Introduction to Comparative Law, 3^rd ed. (Zweigert, Konrad & Kötz, Hein eds., 1998) at 2.Google Scholar

5 Although some commentators have touted the notion that comparative law as a discipline has already reached its peak and is now beginning to decline; see Siems, Mathias M., The End of Comparative Law, 2 Journal of Comparative Law 133 (2007).Google Scholar

6 See Rethinking the Masters of Comparative Law (Riles, Annelise ed., 2001) at 3.Google Scholar

7 Pierre Legrand, Fragments of Law-as-Culture (1999) at 9.Google Scholar

8 See Glenn, H. Patrick, Com-paring in Comparative Law: A Handbook, 91 (Esin Örücü & Nelken, David eds., 2007).Google Scholar

9 Twining, William, Globalisation and Comparative Law in Comparative Law: A Handbook, 69, 84 (Esin Örücü & Nelken, David eds., 2007).Google Scholar

10 Kennedy, David, The Methods and the Politics in Comparative Legal Studies: Traditions & Transitions, 345 (Legrand, Pierre & Munday, Roderick eds., 2003).Google Scholar

11 Nelken says much the same about the concept of legal culture, posing the question: “is legal culture the name of the question or the answer?” See Nelken, David, Defining and Using the Concept of Legal Culture in Comparative Law: A Handbook, 109, 114 (Esin Örücü & Nelken, David eds., 2007).Google Scholar

12 See supra note 7, 10.Google Scholar

13 See Sir Basil Markesinis, Comparative Law in the Courtroom and Classroom (2003) at 53; see also Sir Markesinis, Basil, Comparative Law - A Subject in Search of an Audience, 53 Modern Law Review (MLR) 1 (1990).Google Scholar

14 Nelken, David, Comparative Law & Comparative Legal Studies in Comparative Law: A Handbook, 3, 4 (Esin Örücü & Nelken, David eds., 2007).Google Scholar

15 For example see supra, note 4, and Elgar Encyclopedia of Comparative Law (Smits, Jan ed., 2006).Google Scholar

16 Menski, Werner, Beyond Europe in Comparative Law: A Handbook, 189 (Esin Örücü & Nelken, David eds., 2007).Google Scholar

17 Supra, note 9.Google Scholar

18 The birth of the discipline is universally recognised as occurring in 1900 in Paris, at the first congress held by the Société de Législation Comparée. Google Scholar

19 Obvious examples here include the civil/common law split, the notion of legal mentalité and constitutional borrowing, to name but a few.Google Scholar

20 See for example the seminal piece by Günter Frankenberg, Critical Comparisons: Re-Thinking Comparative Law, 26 Harvard International Law Journal (Harv. Int'l.L.J.) 411 (1985) and infra, note 22.Google Scholar

21 Supra, note 11, at 4, 24 and 33.Google Scholar

22 See, most obviously, Pierre Legrand's anti-harmonisation standpoint as argued in, for example, Pierre Legrand, European Legal Systems are not Converging, International and Comparative Law Quarterly (ICLQ) 45, 52–81 (1996); and Legrand, Pierre, Antivonbar, 1 Journal of Comparative Law (JCL) 13 (2006), among others.Google Scholar

23 It should be noted here that the positivist (instrumentalist/functionalist) approach really only occupied the mainstream in Europe. While legal realism and functionalism were also popular in the U.S., they were rarely utilised in terms of comparative law. See Ralf Michaels, Functional Method in The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Law, 339, 351 (Reimann, Mathias & Zimmermann, Reinhard eds., 2006).Google Scholar

24 See Reimann, Mathias, Stepping Out of the European Shadows Why Comparative Law in the United States Must Develop Its Own Agenda, 46 American Journal of Comparative Law (Am. J. Comp. Law) 637 (1998), where he critiques the classical edifice of mid-century comparative legal scholarship.Google Scholar

25 Cotterrell, Roger, Is It So Bad To Be Different? Comparative Law and the Appreciation of Diversity in Comparative Law: A Handbook, 133,135 (Esin Örücü & Nelken, David eds., 2007).Google Scholar

26 Legrand, Pierre, The Same and the Different in Comparative Legal Studies: Traditions & Transitions, 240, 277 (Legrand, Pierre & Munday, Roderick eds., 2003).Google Scholar

27 Supra, note 25, 136.Google Scholar

28 See, for example, the contributions of Masha Antokolskaia, Comparative Family Laws Moving With the Times? in Comparative Law: A Handbook, 241 (Esin Örücü & Nelken, David eds., 2007); Bell, John, Administrative Law In Comparative Perspective in Comparative Law: A Handbook, 287 (Esin Örücü & Nelken, David eds., 2007); Foster, Nicholas H.D., Comparative Commercial laws Rules or Context? in Comparative Law: A Handbook, 263 (Esin Örücü & Nelken, David eds., 2007); Menski, Werner, Beyond Europe in Comparative Law: A Handbook, 189 (Esin Örücü & Nelken, David eds., 2007); see also, supra, note 4.Google Scholar

29 Supra, note 14, 19Google Scholar

30 Supra, note 8, 91–108Google Scholar

31 Supra, note 7, 5Google Scholar

32 For an account of the logistical differences of a contextual study, see Foster, supra, note 28, 280.Google Scholar

33 See Erp, Sjef van, Comparative Law in Practice: The Process of Law Reform in Comparative Law: A Handbook, 399 (Esin Örücü & Nelken, David eds., 2007).Google Scholar

34 For the stated aims, see both Esin Örücü & Nelken, David, Preface in Comparative Law: A Handbook, (Esin Örücü & Nelken, David eds., 2007) and the description on the back-cover.Google Scholar

35 Good illustrations of this type are the papers by, for example, Esin Örücü, A General View of ‘Legal Families’ and of ‘Mixing Systems' in Comparative Law: A Handbook, 169 (Esin Örücü & Nelken, David eds., 2007); Smits, Jan, Convergence of Private Law in Europe: Towards A New Ius Commune? in Comparative Law: A Handbook, 219 (Esin Örücü & Nelken, David eds., 2007); and Harding, Andrew & Leyland, Peter, Comparative Law in Constitutional Contexts in Comparative Law: A Handbook, 313 (Esin Örücü & Nelken, David eds., 2007). Roger Cotterrell also has helpful clarifications of difficult or advanced terminology throughout his text: see supra, note 25.Google Scholar

36 It should be said here that a minor gripe on my own part is that the vast majority of criticisms I (would) have raised in reviewing this volume have been pre-empted and on the whole both explained and justified by Nelken's excellent introductory chapter, especially as I followed his suggestion to read it both at the beginning and end of the Handbook; see Nelken, David, supra, note 14Google Scholar

37 See for example, Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Laws A Map of Misreading, 14 Journal of Law & Society 279 (1987) and Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Toward A New Legal Common Sense (2002).Google Scholar