Customer Reviews

Jurisprudence: Contemporary Readings, Problems & Narratives (American Casebooks)

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I tell my students that the law is a jealous mistress as an explanation of why jurisprudence, as the repository of politics, economics, and morality, is so reluctant to change and often impervious to new ideas.

I assigned this book for a graduate course called "Introduction to Jurisprudence". I believed the book was one of the best surveys of essays on the philosoophy of law. I was not disappointed.

Jurisprudence is, as those of us who teach it know, one of the most complex subjects in law. How the tapestry of American law was woven from the threads of social, political, economic, and philsophical threads is a dense study even for philosophers and legal experts. Hayman and Levitt rescue what might be a hopelessly opaque discipline from the chaos of competing political and social theories in a clever manner: they let jurisprudence tell its own story through the essays of prominent jurists and legal theorists from the early days of the republic to the post-modern present.

Even with insightful choices of readings and orienting chapter preambles, jurisprudence remains a stormy study. Yet, the book's ebb and flow of what sometimes appear to be a subtle tongue in cheek juxtaposition of competing theories rescues the reader from drowning in a a bubbling caldron of ideas.

The chapters are arranged in schools and periods of jurisprudence with a nod to both history and politics. A categorical treatment of the subject might rob us of an understanding of the organic nature of law were it not for the clever choice of essays which remind the reader that the legal past haunts the present. This treatment is thought provoking and seems designed to spark heated in-class discussions. It did in my course.

My only suggestion is that expanded explanations in the chapter prefaces might help students understand the social and political currents that influenced writers at various periods and aid students in comprehension between classes. Otherwise, it is an excellent treatment of the subject and a good pedagogical aid while being a good read for those more familar with the subject.