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Bluebook 21st ed.

Ignazio Castellucci, Review on John W. Head's Works: Great Legal Traditions - Civil
Law, Common Law and Chinese Law in Historical and Operational Perspective, 7
Frontiers L. CHINA 702 (2012).

ALWD 6th ed.

Castellucci, I. ., Review on john w. head's works: Great legal traditions - civil
law, common law and chinese law in historical and operational perspective, 7(4)
Frontiers L. China 702 (2012).

APA 7th ed.

Castellucci, I. (2012). Review on john w. head's works: Great legal traditions civil
law, common law and chinese law in historical and operational perspective. Frontiers
of Law in China, 7(4), 702-706.

Chicago 17th ed.

Ignazio Castellucci, "Review on John W. Head's Works: Great Legal Traditions - Civil
Law, Common Law and Chinese Law in Historical and Operational Perspective," Frontiers
of Law in China 7, no. 4 (December 2012): 702-706

McGill Guide 9th ed.

Ignazio Castellucci, "Review on John W. Head's Works: Great Legal Traditions - Civil
Law, Common Law and Chinese Law in Historical and Operational Perspective" (2012) 7:4
Frontiers L China 702.

AGLC 4th ed.

Ignazio Castellucci, 'Review on John W. Head's Works: Great Legal Traditions - Civil
Law, Common Law and Chinese Law in Historical and Operational Perspective' (2012)
7(4) Frontiers of Law in China 702.

MLA 8th ed.

Castellucci, Ignazio. "Review on John W. Head's Works: Great Legal Traditions - Civil
Law, Common Law and Chinese Law in Historical and Operational Perspective." Frontiers
of Law in China, vol. 7, no. 4, December 2012, p. 702-706. HeinOnline.

OSCOLA 4th ed.

Ignazio Castellucci, 'Review on John W. Head's Works: Great Legal Traditions - Civil
Law, Common Law and Chinese Law in Historical and Operational Perspective' (2012) 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

REVIEW ON JOHN W. HEAD'S WORKS:

GREAT LEGAL TRADITIONS - CIVIL LAW, COMMON LAW
AND CHINESE LAW IN HISTORICAL AND
OPERATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

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.

John W. Head is a Robert W. Wagstaff Distinguished Professor at School

of Law, University of Kansas, USA; his involvement in comparative and
historical legal research dates back decades, with specific experiences in
China and Asia as a researcher, teacher and legal consultant. This handbook
on comparative legal traditions follows other books of his on Chinese law
and legal history, published by Carolina Academic Press in 2009 (China's
Legal Soul - the Modern Chinese Legal Identity in Historical Context) and
2005 (Law Codes in Dynastic China, co-authored with Yanping Wang).
1. Context, General Features, Target Readership. - "One more
handbook on comparative legal systems," some may say. This book is
different from most available teaching tools for comparative legal systems in
many respects. Beyond its scope, structure and substantial contents, the
obvious element of singularity is in the book's very fresh approach to
teaching a legal subject, with ample adherence to the language and resources
that students are more likely to access and use.
The book has quite obviously been devised mainly as a teaching tool for
graduate and undergraduate students of comparative law, historical and
social-legal studies, jurisprudence. Scholars and practitioners, however, will

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
704 FRONTIERS OF LA WIN CHINA [Vol. 7: 702

in the first place, when studying, to enlarge/deepen the knowledge received

from their main textbook, exploring ramifications.
The recourse made to an unusual, innovative form of communication
between the Author and the reader enhances in my opinion the chances to
have the Author's messages passed across: The text resembles to some extent
a multi-dimensional object, perhaps being thought out and aiming at being
used as a hypertext of sorts - with links to ramifications which are actually
accessible to the book's average or target reader, like web resources; or
actually located within the book, like the frequent text boxes, appendices,
charts etc., providing extra details which a reader may or may not read,
according to the intended purpose of reading.
2. Structure, Contents. - One introductory chapter on comparative law
and legal traditions in general is followed by six chapters, devoted the two
each to the analyzed legal traditions analyzed in the book: the civil law one,
the common law one, the Chinese one; for each tradition the related historical
description is provided in one chapter and operational, present aspects are
discussed in the other. Each chapter features a brief introductory comment
and study questions, before the bulk of the text; and is followed by a number
of appendices.
This structure of the books in 2+2+2 chapters allows the Author and the
reader to construct several parallel pictures, or cross-sections, where the three
traditions are synoptically presented and easily compared - also due to
formatted descriptions, provided by the Author by using a descriptive grid
focusing on specific elements such as judicial procedure or the legal
profession - more easily revealing diversities and similarities through the
alignment of specific homologous elements. The parallel descriptions and
comparisons provided seem to imply an East-West division at the core of the
comparative discourse; and other secondary division (common law v civil
law; past v. present) providing different points of view, to enable a
stereoscopic view of the observed objects (mainly, of the Chinese legal
tradition).
A "selected bibliography" of basic sources related to comparative law in
general and to the three traditions described is provided at the end of the book,
in addition to the materials cited in the footnotes. This distribution of
references reflects the dual use of the book: students are likely to look for just
2012] REVIEW ON JOHN W HEAD'S WORKS 705

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
706 FRONTIERS OF LA WIN CHINA [Vol. 7: 702

rapidly changing Chinese legal system.

Another elaboration the discerning reader would probably like to read
since the Author limited the book's scope to the three legal traditions
analyzed stressing their "greatness" - grounding it on the fact they survived
and are still operational in most jurisdictions in the world - could be on why
these survived while others did not, or not so much.
As a suggested improvement for future editions, a list of web resources
along with the bibliography would certainly be a valuable tool, to complete
such a student-oriented study book; whereas a fuller bibliography rather than
the available "selected" one would perhaps accommodate the expectations of
more professional readers. On the other side, and conclusively, the strong
points of this book are several: The book is innovative in structure, in style
and in its having multiple levels of readability, targeting on different
audiences; it is intelligent in its contents and rich in the data and information
provided.
Students, teachers, professionals and scholars, will all find in it, beyond
historic and legal data, very acute comparative analyses and real "food" for
thought. It is a book stimulating hunger for contextual knowledge of legal
issues, and helping younger readers in developing an attitude towards
elaborating individual opinions and reasoned inferences, based on facts. Most
of all, Head's Great Legal Traditions is in my opinion a good example of
teacher-friendly, student-friendly, innovative educational tool.
Notwithstanding its relatively limited scope (confined to the three
mentioned legal traditions only), the book is in my opinion one of the best
basic comparative law handbooks available for undergraduate and graduate
students, being kept on the same shelf with others such as Schlesinger (9th
ed., 2009) and P. H. Glenn (4th ed., 2010), as a part of a panorama of
different perspectives - which could well be integrated - for the benefit of
teaching and learning, as reference and a starting point for research, or simply
as cultivated leisure reading.