Monday, June 11, 2018

Bix on Tamanaha on Historical Jurisprudence

Brian Bix, University of Minnesota Law School, has posted A New Historical Jurisprudence? Which appears in the Washington University Law Review 95 (2018): 1035-1047:
As part of a conference on Brian Tamanaha’s book, A Realistic Theory of Law, this article evaluates Tamanaha's claims in favor of Historical Jurisprudence. I agree with Tamanaha that the great works of that school of thought deserve more attention than they are now receiving. Also, as Tamanaha points out, some of the insights of Historical Jurisprudence were adapted by (or emerged independently in) the works of American Legal Realists and Sociological Jurisprudence. Ultimately, though, the article argues that the role of history in understanding law and legal systems must be distinctly different from the role claimed for history by the writers of the Historical Jurisprudence school.
H/t: Legal Theory Blog