The Oxford handbook of legal studies

This innovative volume in the prestigious series of Oxford Handbooks provides a widely accessible overview of legal scholarship at the dawn of the 21st century. Through 43 essays by leading legal scholars based in the USA, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Germany it provides a varied and stimulating set of road maps to guide readers through the increasingly large and conceptually sophisticated body of legal scholarship.

Focusing mainly, though not exclusively, on scholarship in the English language and taking an international and comparative approach, the contributors to The Oxford Hardbook of Legal Studies offer original and interpretative accounts of the nature, themes, and preoccupations of research and writing about law. They then go on to consider likely trends and developments in scholarship in the next decade or so.

The volume is arranged in seven parts entitled "Property and Obligations', 'Citizens and Government', 'Wealth Redistribution and Welfare', 'Business and Commerce', 'Technology', 'Processes', and 'Research and Researchers'. It offers fresh and wide-ranging perspectives on the state and future direction of legal scholarship.

For 20 years, Peter Cane taught law at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Since 1997, he has been Professor of Law in the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University.

Mark Tushnet has taught at Georgetown University Law Center since 1981. He served as a law clerk to Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme Court in 1972-73, after which he began teaching at the University of Wisconsin Law School.


The Oxford Handbooks series is a major new initiative in academic publishing. Each volume offers an authoritative and state-of-the-art survey of current thinking and research in a particular subject area. Specially commissioned essays from leading international figures in the discipline give critical examinations of the progress and direction of debates. Oxford Handbooks provide scholars and graduate students with compelling new perspectives upon a wide range of subjects in the humanities and social sciences.