The Loneliness of the Comparative Lawyer

In these critical essays a leading comparative lawyer: • examines the movement for convergence of the Civil Law and the Common Law • describes the Italian Style and the French Deviation • contrasts Common Law estate with Civil Law ownership • explains why the distinction between public law and private law is important to Civil Lawyers but has little interest for Common Lawyers • exposes the fatal emptiness at the core of the Law and Development movement • proposes a marriage of comparative law and scientific explanation • emphasizes the fundamental relation between law and social and cultural change • argues that the dominant tradition of comparative law teaching and scholarship is trapped in a cramped and arid 19th century paradigm • advocates a culturally broader and historically richer approach to comparative law teaching and scholarship