The Law of Tracing. By Mohammud Jaamae Hafeez-Baig and Jordan English. [Alexandria, NSW: The Federation Press, 2021. xxi + 276 pp. Hardback $180.00. ISBN 978-1-76002-306-5.]

Abstract

1990s) is one where comparativists like Legrand have broken free of the authority paradigm. And so, what Fekete claims to be doing is applying a “light” version of Kuhn’s theory, thus avoiding the problem of incommensurability between competing paradigms. What Kuhn offers, says Fekete, is “a conceptual vocabulary to tame the complexity of scholarly development” (p. 164). Yet it is not evident that he really needs this vocabulary. His five “paradigm” periods would be just as understandable if he were to use the vocabulary of social science – programmes, schemes of intelligibility, poles and orientations – and it (they) would surely suffice as a framework for his excellent discussion of the comparatists he regards as key in the history of comparative law. To employ Kuhn suggests that law is a science in the natural science meaning of the term; this is something that a good many comparatists would not just contest but see as very dangerous.