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7 Frontiers L China 702
7 Frontiers L China 702
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FRONTIERS OF LAW IN CHINA
VOL. 7 DECEMBER 2012 NO. 4
DOI 10.3868/s050-001-012-0034-4
Ignazio Castellucci*
John W. Head, Great Legal Traditions- Civil Law, Common Law and
Chinese Law in Historical and OperationalPerspective. Durham (North
Carolina): Carolina Academic Press, 2011. ISBN: 978-1-59460-957-2.
Pgs: xxiv + 676.
Professor in law, at School of Law, University of Trento, Trento, Italy. The Author is a
regular visiting scholar of comparative legal systems, at University of Macau, China. His
research covers comparative law, jurisprudence, and legal history, etc. Contact:
ignazio.castelluccia unitn.it
2012] REVIEW ON JOHN W HEAD'S WORKS 703
also find it useful to have an access to the Chinese legal tradition and system.
In general, any cultivated person with an interest in understanding the role of
law in society as well as wider cultural issues, notably in the East-West
discourse, will also find it readable and interesting.
The added value of this book is in the original way the matter is
structured and presented, allowing a number of specific comparative analyses;
and in the frequent deviation from the strictly legal discourse into non-legal
ramifications (ranging from the more obvious ones, such as history to the less
obvious such as geography, politics, to the not-obvious-at-all like physics),
making the discourse more interesting and palatable for the readers.
The elaborations made by the Author on legal materials exposed and on
consolidated legal knowledge are always inspired and acute. In content, the
book features a wealth of historical and legal information, and an significant
amount of high-quality comparative analyses; critical features of each
tradition are exposed, through the Author's discourse as well as through the
use of uncommon vehicles: The "common law v civil law" court play - an
entire article of M. Moskovitz inspired in the trial to 0. J. Simpson, entirely
reproduced at pages 255-304 of the book - is a fantastic example of this.
In addition to sets of study questions, outlines and introductory
comments to each chapter, also charts, maps, biographies and other unusual
teaching tools can be found in the book, including the already mentioned
court play; or the discussion of a real Italian court case, to expose how culture
affects the implementation of legal models when transplanted from a
jurisdiction to another.
Another of Head's signature elements within the book is the production
of songs, in which pedagogical lyrics developed by Head are coupled with
pop/folk tunes. I do not believe that Head's point here is really (or only) the
one that the students would more easily retain historical notions on civil law
or Chinese law by learning by heart his lyrics to the tunes of famous songs.
I would rather think it is (also) about introducing an element of levity in the
teaching/studying context, however, not excluding a function of these songs
as mnemonic devices.
A remarkable amount of references provided in footnotes consist of web
resources, including Wiki sources, or bibliographic references to Nutshells:
Exactly what every good student in the world will probably make recourse to
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a few more texts for their study or student-level further research, using the
footnotes to readily identify the relevant materials; those engaging in more
ample or sophisticated research will first of all browse the bibliography
instead.
3. A Few Comments. - The obvious aim of the Author seems to have
been, indeed, larger than just providing historical and legal facts within an
ample East-West discourse: It seems the one of improving the readers'
(mostly students') abilities of developing their own critical capabilities and
reasoning skills, of enlarging their cultural background and the scope of their
interests, and of putting legal issues into a wider historic and societal context.
The book seems to be focused on a East-West comparative discourse,
mostly devised perhaps for the benefit of a common law reader's perspective:
comparing three "classical" historical legal traditions for the main purpose of
better understanding the civil law tradition, first; and the Chinese one, then.
Conversely, this book will reveal to Chinese (and civilian) readers a lot
of how Westerners, especially common lawyers, see the law and its role in
society. This is not a secondary characteristic, especially considering the
Chinese graduate students' and practitioners' growing demand for
synthesized explainations of Western legal history and jurisprudence
(compared to the Eastern) in a manageable size.
Great Legal Traditions can be considered as a great picture of the three
mentioned legal traditions, at the end of the 20th century, or at the dawn of
the 21st century; a basic text for Western comparative law students to
approach the Chinese legal traditions, and for the Chinese to approach
Western ones. Its aim is the one of providing its readers, in a relatively
compact size, with basic historical and legal elements as well as cultural tools
enableing further reading, studying, and research.
The book's nature and purpose probably explains some limits in the
scope of its analyses: One is in the fact that recent internal dynamics of
Western law are not completely dealt with, especially in relation to the
existence of mixed jurisdictions and to recent trends and to the current
process of convergence of the two main Western traditional models of legal
system. Also, on the Chinese side, there is not much elaboration on "where is
the Chinese model going?" - In a geographic sense, due to the historic and
the present growing prestige of China in Asia; and in the very features of the
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