The Concept of Law (Clarendon Law Series)

Description

Fifty years on from its original publication, HLA Hart s The Concept of Law is widely recognized as the most important work of legal philosophy published in the twentieth century. It is a classic book in the field of legal scholarship and remains the starting point for most students coming to the subject for the first time.

Known as Hart s most famous work, The Concept of Law emerged from a set of lectures that Hart began to deliver in 1952 in which he developed a sophisticated view of legal positivism. Hart revolutionized the methods of jurisprudence and the philosophy of law in the English-speaking world by bringing the tools of analytic, and especially linguistic, philosophy to bear on the central problems of legal theory.

In this third edition, Leslie Green provides a new introduction that sets the book in the context of subsequent developments in social and political philosophy, clarifying misunderstandings of Hart s project and highlighting central tensions and problems in the work. The Concept of Law remains a must-read for anyone interested in the great thinkers of the 20th century.