Post by Sandra Michelle R.

For those interested in legal history, comparative law, global history, and related research—and still looking for an intellectually stimulating summer read— Professor Thomas Duve’s newly published 𝑯𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒉𝒆 𝑵𝒐𝒓𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒊𝒕𝒂̈𝒕𝒔𝒘𝒊𝒔𝒔𝒆𝒏𝒔𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒇𝒕. 𝑹𝒆𝒄𝒉𝒕𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒌 𝒋𝒆𝒏𝒔𝒆𝒊𝒕𝒔 𝒅𝒆𝒓 𝑴𝒐𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒏𝒆 (𝑲𝒍𝒐𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒏, 2026) is certainly worth discovering. The book offers an “outline of a methodology for an interdisciplinarily informed historical science of normativity.” – Especially for legal historians trained in German legal academia, as I myself was, and other traditions that similarly focus on a norm-centred analysis it is an important invitation to broaden our scope of observation when writing legal histories. For my own work on Chinese legal history, engaging with his proposal and discussing it with my colleagues in our department has been particularly helpful. It has encouraged me to ask myself what I actually should include in my observations of Chinese administrative law history. The book is an important proposal—and an invitation to further conversation—to reflect critically on the object of the legal histories we aim to write and, in doing so, on how we might eventually “exoticise” ourselves. In the case of China-related research, I am convinced that it offers great potential for both existing studies and those yet to be conducted, enabling them to mobilise their empirical insights for legal histories that move beyond Western modernity as their unquestioned point of departure. #Globallegalhistory #newreadingsinlegalhistory #China