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Legal Canons

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Every discipline has its canon: the set of standard texts, approaches, examples, and stories by which it is recognized and which its members repeatedly invoke and employ. Although the last twenty-five years have seen the influence of interdisciplinary approaches to legal studies expand, there has been little recent consideration of what is and what ought to be canonical in the study of law today.

Legal Canons brings together fifteen essays which seek to map out the legal canon and the way in which law is taught today. In order to understand how the twin ideas of canons and canonicity operate in law, each essay focuses on a particular aspect, from contracts and constitutional law to questions of race and gender. The ascendance of law and economics, feminism, critical race theory, and gay legal studies, as well as the increasing influence of both rational-actor methodology and postmodernism, are all scrutinized by the leading scholars in the field.

A timely and comprehensive volume, Legal Canons articulates the need for, and means to, opening the debate on canonicity in legal studies.

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444 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2000

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About the author

Jack M. Balkin

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3,014 reviews
February 28, 2015
This is pretty good. It's a very important topic if it is a little overwrought.

Some of these essay stray a little too far from the topic of the book. Most of the essay critique existing canons from the left. It would be interesting to see critiques from the right or at least more dialogue among the authors.

Still, a good start. I wonder if there is more of this.
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