An Introduction to Critical Legal Theory

This book is a comprehensive text for both students and teachers of legal theory, jurisprudence and related subjects. It introduces all the traditional schools of legal theory, from natural law to Positivism to Legal Formalism as well as a number of contemporary and interdisciplinary approaches to legal theory including law and economics, law and society, law and literature, critical legal studies, feminism, race theory and post modernism. In the process of so doing, as well as introducing the reader to established jurists, such as Bentham and Hart, Rawls and Durkin, the text also introduces philosophers such as Plato, Kant and Sartre, economists such as Smith, Keynes and Galbraith, social theorists such as Foucault, Marx and literary theorists such as Derrida and Fish. This book seeks to perfect the increasing ambition of Legal Theory to reach beyond the narrow confines of traditional jurisprudence and to re-establish itself within the wider intellectual world. This book is not just a text about legal theory, it is also a text which introduces the reader to philosophy, economics, politics, history, literature and social theory. It thus provides not just a critical introduction to legal theory, but an introduction to the entire ambition of law as an intellectual discipline. "Introduction to Critical Legal Theory provides an accessible introduction to the study of law and legal theory. It covers all the seminal movements in classical, modern and postmodern legal thought, engaging the reader with the ideas of jurists as diverse as Aristotle, Hobbes, Kant, Marx, Foucault and Dworkin. At the same time, it impresses the interdisciplinary nature of critical legal thought, introducing the reader to the philosophy, the economics and the politics of law. This new edition focuses even more intently upon the narrative aspect of critical legal thinking and the re-emergence of a distinctive legal humanism, as well as the various related challenges posed by our 'new' world order." "Introduction to Critical Legal Theory is a comprehensive text for both students and teachers of legal theory, jurisprudence and related subjects."--Jacket Preface......Page 6 Contents......Page 10 1 Identifying Modernism......Page 14 2 The Critique of Modernity......Page 44 3 The Politics of Community......Page 68 4 The Politics of Positivism......Page 92 5 Law and the Political Economy......Page 118 6 Politics Power and Pragmatism......Page 150 7 Postmodernism and Deconstruction......Page 178 Bibliography......Page 206 Index......Page 218 Introduces various traditional schools of legal theory, from natural law to Positivism to Legal Formalism as well as a number of contemporary and interdisciplinary approaches to legal theory. This book is a comprehensive text for both students and teachers of legal theory, jurisprudence and related subjects. Ian Ward. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 193-203) And Index.