The Rise and Fall of Critical Legal Studies: Law, Politics, Culture
By (Author) James Gilchrist Stewart
Edinburgh University Press
Edinburgh University Press
12th May 2026
United Kingdom
Non Fiction
Law and society, sociology of law
Literary theory
Political science and theory
Literary studies: general
Legal history
Social and political philosophy
Methods, theory and philosophy of law
Jurisprudence and general issues
Paperback
190
Width 156mm, Height 234mm
A wide-ranging intellectual history of the Critical Legal Studies Movement, drawing from personal accounts, academic works, and the media. The Rise and Fall of Critical Legal Studies unpacks Critical Legal Studies (CLS) to address what CLS was, how it came about, and what its legacy means for contemporary legal theories.
Taking a CLS approach to CLS, a range of legal, literary, filmic, and philosophical lenses are applied to key theorists and their works, with a specific focus on Duncan Kennedy. Through this analysis, a dominant type of CLS is untangled, and in true Crit form, repeatedly questioned from different perspectives to see what it achieved.
The Rise and Fall of Critical Legal Studies argues that CLS haunts the legal landscape, constricting emerging critiques of law. While the personal hierarchies of the Movement's founders ensured CLS was also limited.