Written in a clear and accessible style, this prize-winning work seeks to recast the discipline of comparative law and offers a major new means of conceptualizing law and legal relations across the world. Instead of a narrow focus on national legal systems, Glenn places national laws in the broader context of legal traditions. He examines seven of the world's most important and complex legal traditions in detail: chthonic (or indigenous) law; talmudic law; civil law; islamic law; common law; hindu law; and Asian law. Each tradition is examined in terms of its institutions and substantive law, its foundational concepts and methods, its attitude towards the concept of change, and its teaching on relations with other traditions and peoples. Mutual influences throughout history are noted and, whilst the major and important differences are admitted, the various traditions are nevertheless shown to be fundamentally commensurable. Legal Traditions of the World concludes with a synthesis of the contribution of legal traditions to the understanding of tradition generally. The normativity and multiplicity of the world's legal traditions are examined, as is their ability, as complex traditions, to reconcile major differences of opinion or belief in a peaceable manner. Complex traditions are ultimately shown to represent multivalent forms of logic and can thus be regarded as the best means of facilitating sustainable human diversity in an increasingly interdependent world.

H. Patrick Glenn's profile page

H. Patrick Glenn is Peter M. Laing Professor of Law at McGill University, Montreal, and a former Director of the McGill Institute of Comparative Law. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a Member of the International Academy of Comparative Law.

In its manuscript form, the volume was awarded the Grand Prize of the International Academy of Comparative Law in August 1998.. the content of this book clearly warrants that distinguished accolade. It will become a significant.. ground- breaking work in the field of comparative law. comparative legal analysis and discussion. s

Patrick Glenn's Legal Traditions of the World is one of the very best books that I have read on comparative law. Its impact on the teaching of the subject and the practice of comparative law methodology should be considerable, perhaps even profound. It is the book that needed to be written to help contemporary and emerging comparatists break free of the dry taxonomy used in some traditionalist approaches to comparative legal analysis and discussion. s

"This book is set up to make it accessible and interesting to a variety of academic fields", M. Coulthard, May 2001

"The book is a fine introduction to the different legal traditions of the world, well-written and nicely structured", Dr RJC Munday, Cambridge University

This is an exceptional and eminently readable book. Combining a historically accurate analysis with a distinctly contemporary sensibility, Glenn invokes not only jurisprudential concepts as he explains different legal traditions, but religious and sociological ideas as well. One of the most striking aspects of the book is that, although it as clearly written with students and non-specialists in mind, it will also appeal to experienced comparativists. S. I. Strong, The Cambridge Law Journal

"The book gives an invaluable background for more specific areas of law both for academics and students", Stanislaw Biernat, Jagellonian University