Abbreviations Table of Cases 1. Reflections on the State of Comparative Law I: The Twilight of the Heroes 1. Of Ghettoes and Smart Neighbourhoods 2. Decline 2. Reflections on the State of Comparative Law II: The Death of Heroes and the Era of Societal Needs 1. The Emergence of a Strategy 2. The Rabel Method Over Time 3. Functional Specificity: More of the Same Medicine 4. Old (Bad) Habits and New (Silly) Threats 5. From Heroes to Movements of Contemporary Globalisation 3. Spreading the Gospel (and the Name of the Evangelist) 1. Aims to be Pursued 2. Warnings and Caveats 3. Some Raw Data 4. Drawing the First Lessons 5. The Situation in Germany 6. The Case of South Africa 7. A Postscript 4. Foreign Law Inspiring National Law: Lessons from Greatorex v Greatorex 1. The Theory Put into Practice 2. The German Model 3. The Application of the German Idea to Greatorex 4. Unresolved Questions 5. The American Dimension 6. Some Tentative Conclusions 5. The Focused Approach in Public Law 1. Introduction 2. A Study in Parallel 3. The Reasoning of the Courts 4. In Search of a Rapprochement 5. Wider Conclusions 6. Reflecting on the Future: An Epilogue Appendix 1: Correspondence Between Lord Atkin and Professor H C Gutteridge Appendix 2: The German Approach Appendix 3: Databases Searched Index

This is an original, deliberately controversial and, at times, disturbing appraisal of the state of comparative law at the beginning of the 21st century: its weaknesses, its strengths, and its protagonists during the preceding thirty-five years.