Uwe Kischel's comprehensive treatise on comparative law offers a critical introduction to the central tenets of comparative legal scholarship. The first part of the book is dedicated to general aspects of comparative law. The highly controversial question of methods, in particular, is addressed by explaining and discussing the different approaches that have been proposed, and by developing a contextual approach which remains close to the practical needs and the practical experience of comparative law. The second part of the book is dedicated to a thorough, detailed and critical discussion of the major legal contexts of the world: common law; civil law (including chapters on Eastern Europe, Russia, Scandinavia, and Latin America); the African context (with an emphasis on traditional law), diverse contexts in Asia (China, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, India, Indonesia); Islamic law and law in Islamic countries (with an excursus on Jewish law and on canon law); and transnational contexts (public international law, European Union law, and lex mercatoria). The book offers a coherent treatment of global legal systems that aims not only to describe their varying norms and legal institutions but to propose a better way of seeking to understand how the overall context of legal systems influences legal thinking and legal practice.