Maccormick's Scotland - (Edinburgh Studies in Law) by Neil Walker (Paperback)

About the Book

A Gedenkschrift to one of Scotland's most prominent jurists and legal thinkers.

Book Synopsis

This book analyses in depth the distinctively Scottish themes in the work of Sir Neil MacCormick, the world-renowned legal philosopher and prominent Scottish public intellectual who died in 2009 after holding the Regius Chair in Public Law and the Law of Nature and Nations at Edinburgh University for 36 years. MacCormick's work, and works about MacCormick, attract both a domestic and an international audience. Readers will gain an understanding of how MacCormick's Scottish roots, interests and commitments coloured his work - both his distinctively Scottish writings and the overall intellectual outlook that informed his broader legal and philosophical writings.The book provides a well rounded appreciation of the Scottish dimension in MacCormick's thinking and writing. It focuses on a number of prominent Scottish themes in MacCormick's work and life and is structured around four key themes: 1) the nature and identity of a legal system; 2) sovereignty, European integration and Scottish independence; 3) the legacy of the legal and political thought of the Scottish enlightenment; and 4) the role of the academic in the Scottish public sphere.

Review Quotes

MacCormick's Scotland sets out to explain the distinctiveness of MacCormick's life and thought in terms of his "Scottishness"....Taken as a whole the book shows how MacCormick's conerns, agendas and distinctive ideas have deep roots in Scottish, history, culture, polictics, institutions, law and, above all, the Scottish Enlightenment. But it makes clear that his influence and significance reach far beyond Scotland....--William Twining, University College London "Cambridge Law Journal, Volume 72 Part 2"

Professor Sir Neil MacCormick, FRSE, FBA (always in that order: with the Edinburgh society preceding the British Academy on his business card!), LLD, Jur.Dr.h. c. (multi!), QC, Regius Chair of Public Law and the Law of Nature and Nations at Edinburgh and MEP, was one of the greatest contemporary legal scholars in Scotland and furth its shores until his untimely death in 2009. Neil Walker and his colleagues put together this set of essays as a tribute to this great man.... Limitations of space militate against a review of all the contributions to this work, but all are stimulating and insightful.--Scott Crichton Styles, University of Aberdeen "The Edinburgh Law Review, 17.3 (2013), http: //www.euppublishing.com/elr"