This book covers a vast area of law, both thematically and geographically. It gives an introduction and overview to the legal systems of Asia and Africa, more specifically, the legal systems in the regions of South Asia, the Middle East, (sub-Saharan) Africa and China, the choice of which is probably thought of as being representative of large areas of the world and, at any rate, reflects the teaching philosophy of the law degree programmes of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), with its distinct emphasis on a non-eurocentric, pluralistic approach to comparative law and its focus on legal systems in Africa and Asia. The book is divided into two parts: first, a methodological part headed ‘comparative framework’; and a second part, ‘regional comparisons in a global context’, which is devoted to an overview of Hindu law, Islamic law, African laws and Chinese law.

In the first part, the author criticizes existing theoretical approaches in comparative law as being far too parochial, eurocentric and unwilling to take a global, plurality-conscious perspective. He stresses that an acceptable comparative approach in relation to non-Western laws must recognize and respect different and multi-layered legal phenomena which are necessarily culture-specific. In this view, the author broadly follows Pierre Legrand, who advocates this approach as a comparative method originally for Western laws against a particularly European trend towards harmonization and unification of existing national laws, and who has identified the requirements for plurality-conscious analysis: a deep commitment to theory and interdisciplinarity, with a critical attitude, an acknowledgement of difference and the avoidance of an assimilationist tendency. Menski's work rests essentially on Legrand's framework when it discusses the regional comparisons. The author also provides a short outline of the intellectual history of the concept of legal pluralism and of comparative jurisprudence, which is generally informative, but, inevitably, sometimes a little too generalizing or oversimplifying, and the reader may be inclined to do more of an in-depth study in certain areas (a starting point may be the usually extensive bibliography which the author provides). Naturally, an overview of Greek and Roman legal philosophy over eight pages, the Historical School of Law on five pages, or the Scandinavian Realists on two pages, must be very incomplete (not surprisingly, an author who stresses the requirement of a non-positivist, sociological–cultural approach is likely to refer to the otherwise less well-known Scandinavian Realists at some point). Occasionally, the choice of primary sources seems to be slightly eccentric, for example, when the chapters on the Christian–medieval idea of natural law and on natural law in the Renaissance refer to some extent to Otto v Gierke. While the discussions on usually eurocentric jurisprudence are relevant to the comparative lawyer (as indeed they are), they could perhaps be set out more clearly in the respective passages. A legal theorist may, however, rather refer to other works for an introduction to legal philosophy in any case. The author finishes the first part with an attempt to give a working definition of law in a global, especially non-Western, context, where he presents (also in the form of diagrams) the plurality of law in a triangular relationship or tension between religion/ethics/morality/natural law—State positivism—society/socio-legal approaches, which is an interesting and fruitful starting point for a comparative study of non-Western, and arguably also Western, legal cultures and systems. But despite its commendable insistence on plurality consciousness, this work is not always completely free from problematic assimilating generalizations, for example, when the author indicates (at pp 198, 224, 294, 409, 506 etc) that the concepts of the Hindu dharma (‘doing the right thing at the right time’), the Islamic shari‘a (‘the right path’) and the Chinese understanding of li (‘appropriate conduct’) are essentially equivalent.

The second part does not actually give a systematic textbook-like introduction into Hindu law, Islamic law, African laws and Chinese law, but rather provides a methodological commentary for an appropriate comparative approach in legal scholarship of these areas according to the criteria established in part one of the book. This seems to be particularly the case in relation to the sections on African laws and Islamic law, and in the latter case, the reviewer would recommend starting probably with Schacht's and Coulson's classical introductory texts (outdated and controversial as they may be) and Kamali's Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence, and then return to Menski's commentary on scholarly approaches in/on Islamic law, which seems to be geared towards an already fairly knowledgeable readership. A greater reliance on non-Western sources, especially on original Arabic texts which are central to any deeper knowledge and understanding of Islamic law, would have been desirable.

As regards the part on laws in Africa, which in fact refers to sub-Saharan African (and primarily Commonwealth Africa), an overall systematic introduction into some of the legal systems (but without too much black-letter content) would probably be more helpful, rather than an essay on the numerous difficulties which the existing academic discourse on African law(s) occasionally still presents. These difficulties started with the Western scholars' denial of an individual African history and of African laws/legal cultures with a separate legal theory (separate also from Christian and Islamic laws); a view that was strengthened by the various distortions of colonial scholarship and lasted well into the second half of the 20th century. One should not be too critical of the author for not providing a more systematic introduction, because it is doubtful whether a work of the suggested kind can presently be written at all. Little availability of research money and time, the lack of knowledge of African languages, and the unfortunately dangerous political and economic situation in many African countries are not conducive to extensive socio-legal–anthropological research in the relevant regions which could discover and re-examine the plurality and sophisticated layers of present-day interactions of customary laws and their changes, the influences on Islamic law (and vice versa) and the changes and reinterpretations of the laws then laid down by the colonial authorities. Therefore, writings on the laws in a region in Africa, and also Menski's book, often rely heavily on then pioneering but now outdated texts, such as by Allott, which were mainly conceived on the basis of research under the auspices of ‘safe’ British colonial rule or its immediate aftermath in the 1960s. The danger of comparative law as ‘armchair legal tourism’ which the author rightly criticizes (p 609) is imminent here.

All in all, this work is a good handbook which gives an informative first overview of legal cultures in Asia and Africa and invites further study of this otherwise rather neglected area of comparative law.