BEYOND LAW IN CONTEXT:Developing a Sociological Understanding of Law

Beyond Law in context offers an overview of sociology of law focusing on perhaps its most fundamental problem. How can we be certain that social science approaches do not distory legal epistemology and their understanding of law's practices. As the review in Law and Politics Book Review (October 11, 2010) says ' Given the uniformly high intellectual caliber of Nelken’s work, BEYOND LAW IN CONTEXT would arguably be a valuable read even if these essays were self-contained. But what elevates this book beyond mere compilation and makes it captivating is the way that these essays articulate both with one another (essays frequently reference previous ones) and, especially, with the larger intellectual enterprise that has consumed law and society scholarship since its beginnings in the late 1960’s and early 1970’. It ends' Nelken’s volume thus tells us where law and society scholarship has been, how it got there, and where (potentially) it is heading. The individual essays are illuminating and stimulating; the threads that sew them together are crucial for understanding the law and society movement. BEYOND LAW IN CONTEXT is essential