Law and Society

By Stephen Vago

This highly readable and comprehensive book offers a balanced, current and comprehensive overview of the legal system; and administrative, criminal and civil law in a cross-cultural context. It considers the most recent theories and research findings, and emphasizes developing and emerging trends. It focuses on the evolution of modern legal systems, current intellectual movements in law, interplay between law and social change, and the main concerns and issues in the profession and practice of law. This is the only book that considers multicultural and cross-cultural issues in a contemporary context with an interdisciplinary emphasis. For individuals interested in the law, criminal justice, and political science.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0135264359
• ISBN13: 9780135264355
• Release Date: January 1991
• Publisher: Prentice Hall
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A job well done

This is an excellent textbook. The language is clear, the ideas well exposed, and the subject covered in a most satisfactory manner. The sixth edition I have read contains an extensive and very useful bibliography. I'd recommend it whoheartedly for undergraduate courses on the topic. Some minor criticisms: first, I would have liked the section on theoretical perspectives to be more extensive, while the chapter on methods seems to me to be superflous, at least for undergraduates. Second, at the bottom of page 232, the information give is confusing. It talks about tons, without specifying whether metric or not. Further, it uses ounces, pounds and kilos, all very unclear. Thirdly, the sections on the socialist system are obsolete, insofar as those systems have practically disappeared. And, yes, although the author claims, at the bottom of p.1 that he has followed an eclectic apporach, "without embracing or advocating a particular position, ideology, or theoretical stance", the truth is that I feel I detect a very subtle but, nonetheless recognizable, "leftish" leaning. But those are minor shortcomings, whcih shrink to nothing in comparison with the very positive achievements of the textbook. Kudos!