The significance of the language of law for the global history of ideas

Volume 16 of our Open Access book series ›Global Perspectives on Legal History‹ is out now!

February 02, 2021

Gunnar Folke Schuppert’s book explores the role of the language of law in the global history of ideas. Although many central concepts of the history of ideas – such as natural law, constitution or human rights – are legal concepts, the language of law plays a surprisingly marginal role in the study of the history of ideas. Why do history, philosophy and the study of political thought dominate scholarly debate, when the key, much-cited thinkers like Kant, Hegel or Weber developed their own contributions to the philosophy and sociology of law? Schuppert’s book expands the range of perspectives for the global history of ideas by demonstrating that it was not only shaped by the language of law, it can also be written in this language.

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