Although its concern is jurisprudence, The Tapestry of the Law is intended to offer neither an original theory of or about law nor an account of other people's theories in textbook form. It is, rather, an attempt to approach the subject without following either of these conventions. The reasons are as follows. Those engaged in legal theory are prone to assert that one cannot properly understand the law unless one takes a jurisprudential approach - preferably their own - to it. Equally, those engaged in exposition of the law may counter that legal theory fails to pay adequate attention to...