Mathias Siems, Comparative Law, Cambridge University Press 2014

Prof. Siems has graced the world of comparativists with a most comprehensive, holistic, and analytical account of the discipline in the last few years.
The book begins with an introduction setting the comparative agenda and explaining what are the benefits of comparison and what are, if any, the boundaries of comparative law. The introduction is innovative and is used as a background to the book, which covers traditional and non-traditional areas of comparative law. This is one of the main advantages of the book: nothing is taken for granted, and all is assessed under a new prism of comparative law, which is viewed as a sub-discipline of law encompassing comparative jurisprudence, comparative substantive law, and comparative methodology. Part 1 deals with traditional comparative law and discusses the comparative legal method, the divide between civil law and common law, and the mapping of the world’s legal systems. Here the author provides the reader with a measured approach against the overemphasis of similarities and differences between the two legal systems and concludes that purity is no longer evident in a world of hybrids. Part 2 enters into a non-traditional analysis of legal methodology in comparative law and focuses on postmodern, socio-legal, and numerical comparative law, leaving behind the traditional functionalist approach favoured by many comparative lawyers, including this author. The concept behind this extension is intriguing, ultimately persuasive, and rather insightful in that it manages to apply jurisprudential advances to the disciple of comparative law. Part 3 deals with global comparative law. This is, perhaps, the weakest chapter in the book, not from the point of view of its analysis and coverage of topics: far from it, the chapter benefits from extensive coverage of bibliography and in-depth analysis of the topics. My difficulty as a reader here lies in the methodological justification of placing legal transplants, fading state borders, and comparative law and development under the selected title and within one part. Leaving this aside, the analysis of transplants is impressive: finally colonialism is used as a basis to justify comparative and legislative practices in the field of transplants. This leads to the expose on regionalisation and transnationalisation, which again is rather enlightening but would perhaps benefit from further links to international legal jurisprudence on liberalism. Law and development is a gem, especially since it is viewed under the prisms of comparative law and legal transplants. Part 4 ends with comparative law as an open subject. This is a culmination of the innovation and originality so extensively offered in the book. Implicit comparative law is introduced and juxtaposed to explicit comparative law. And the little threads dropped in Parts 2-4 come together to bring the book further forward.
This is a compelling new doctrine in comparative law, of which this book is a delightful, elegant, and comprehensive taster. It is a promising start to a new approach to comparative law, which is persuasive and well argued. This is a book necessary for academics and researchers in comparative law, which I fully expect to last the test of scrutiny and time.

Prof. Helen Xanthaki