比較法学を概説する一冊です。基本的な定義、主要な概念、基本的な語彙を押さえた上で、世界の法伝統に触れ、世界の法体系の特質や法の変容・普及を説明するのに最も有効な比較手法を提示します。また、比較の試みにおいてこれまで採用されてきた競合するアプローチについても説明しており、これらが共通性や普遍的な法則に対する信頼、収束点あるいは分岐点や埋め難い差異に重点を置いていることを浮き彫りにします。比較法が法律の制定や判決において、どのように法の理論や解釈を補っているのか、実践面にも言及します。
 

• Offers a modern and syncretic assessment of legal comparison, combining the perspectives of public and private law
• Contains in a nutshell all basic concepts of comparative law and scholarship
• Discusses both the theoretical aspects and the practical uses of comparative law

   
Comparative Law: A Very Short Introduction aims to offer a concise introduction to Comparative Law—its objectives, methods, concepts and uses. After an overview of the fundamental definitions, key concepts and basic lexicon of the discipline, the book proposes an analysis of the most successful techniques adopted in legal comparison for mapping the world's legal systems and for explaining legal change and diffusion of law, also giving a concise description of the legal traditions of the world.
  
It also offers an account of the competing approaches adopted over time in comparative endeavours, from functionalism to culturalism and postmodernism, and highlights the different emphasis placed by each of these approaches on commonalities, faith in universal law and convergence, or on divergence and irreducible differences. Finally, the book provides readers with an understanding of the practical use of comparative law, describing how legal comparison is employed both in law-making and in adjudication, supplementing legal reasoning and interpretation.