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This text is a theoretical and sociological exploration of the relationship between law and society. Law is generally understood to be a mirror of society - a reflection of its customs and morals - that functions to maintain social order. Focusing on this common understanding, the book conducts a survey of western legal and social theories about law and its relationship within society. It then engages in a theoretical and empirical critique of this common understanding. The theoretical critique exposes the mythical quality of the two most often repeated theories about the emergence of law, the evolutionary theory and the social contract theory. It also discusses a fundamental shift, resulting from Enlightenment ideas about reason and morality, in the theoretical understanding of the relationship between morality and law. The author constructs an alternative universally applicable framework with which to understand the relationship between law and society. The core component to this framework is a non-essentialist approach.
