Tort law, a fundamental building block of every legal system, features prominently in mass culture and political
debates. As this pioneering anthology reveals, tort law is not simply a collection of legal rules and procedures,
but a set of cultural responses to the broader problems of risk, injury, assignment of responsibility, compensation,
valuation, and obligation.
Examining tort law as a cultural phenomenon and a form of cultural practice, this work makes explicit comparisons
of tort law across space and time, looking at the United States, Europe, and Asia in the nineteenth, twentieth,
and twenty-first centuries. It draws on theories and methods from law, sociology, political science, and anthropology
to offer a truly interdisciplinary, pathbreaking view. Ultimately, tort law, the authors show, nests within a larger
web of relationships and shared discursive conventions that organize social life.