Karl Llewellyn and the Realist Movement

An intellectual biography of Karl Llewellyn, originally published in 1973. Includes a preface by Frederick Schauer and an afterword by William Twining.

William Twining (Author)

9781107023383, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 17 September 2012

666 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 3.7 cm, 1.05 kg

'In offering in the afterword new and important historical data along with crisp and challengeable claims about the nature of legal theory as it is practised today, Twining has combined the historical with the jurisprudential in a way that is both faithful to the original book and that makes the book and its new afterword required reading for all those who wish to understand Karl Llewellyn, Legal Realism, American legal thought, and the nature of law itself.' Fred Schauer, from the Foreword

First published in 1973, Karl Llewellyn and the Realist Movement is a classic account of American Legal Realism and its leading figure. Karl Llewellyn is the best known and most substantial jurist of the group of lawyers known as the American Realists. He made important contributions to legal theory, legal sociology, commercial law, contract law, civil liberties and legal education. This intellectual biography sets Llewellyn in the broad context of the rise of the American Realist Movement and contains an overview of his life before focusing on his most important works, including The Cheyenne Way, The Bramble Bush, The Common Law Tradition and the Uniform Commercial Code. In this second edition the original text is supplemented with a preface by Frederick Schauer and an afterword in which William Twining gives a fascinating account of the making of the book and comments on developments in relevant legal scholarship over the past forty years.

Part I. The Rise of the Realist Movement, 1870–1931: Introduction: 1. Langdell's Harvard
2. Corbin's Yale, 1897–1918
3. Columbia in the 1920s
4. The aftermath of the split
5. The realist controversy, 1930–1
Part II. The Life and Work of Karl Llewellyn: A Case Study: 6. The man
7. Two early works
8. The Cheyenne Way
9. Law in our society
10. The Common Law Tradition
11. The genesis of the uniform commercial code
12. The jurisprudence of the uniform commercial code
13. Miscellaneous writings
14. The significance of Llewellyn: an assessment
Part III. Conclusion: 15. The significance of realism.

Subject Areas: Legal history [LAZ], Jurisprudence & philosophy of law [LAB]