William Twining is Emeritus Quain Professor of Jurisprudence of University College London and an established and eminent figure in the field of legal theory. He is widely published with Cambridge University Press and has been a co-editor of the Law in Context series since its inception in 1965. Other recent publications include Rethinking Evidence (Cambridge, 2006), Human Rights, Southern Voices (Cambridge, 2009), General Jurisprudence (Cambridge, 2009) How to Do Things with Rules (with David Miers, Cambridge, 2010) and Karl Llewellyn and the Realist Movement (2nd edition, Cambridge, 2012).

• 1. Jurisprudence: a personal view; 2. Childhood and schooling (1934–52); 3. Oxford and after (1952–57); 4. University of Chicago I (1957–58); 5. Khartoum (1958–61); 6. Dar-es-Salaam (1961–65); 7. Llewellyn again: American interludes (Chicago 1963–64; Yale 1965; Philadelphia 1971); 8. The Queen's University Belfast (1966–72); 9. Normative jurisprudence; 10. Standpoint, questioning, and 'thinking like a lawyer'; 11. Social and legal rules; 12. Warwick (1972–82); 13. Jurisprudence, law in context, realism, doctrine; 14. Rethinking evidence; 15. Bentham's College (1983–99); 16. Four contrasting relationships (Bentham, Dworkin, MacCormick, Anderson); 17. Legal education; 18. Globalisation and law; 19. General jurisprudence; 20. Retirement; Notes on the images; Endnotes.

'William Twining has for more than half a century made important contributions to the study of evidence and proof, legal realism, legal reasoning, legal history, and legal sociology, but this book is far more than a memoir. It is an imaginative use of all of these fields, and more, to offer an integrative guide to thinking about what law is and what law does in the extraordinarily diverse array of contexts in which law exists.' Frederick Schauer, University of Virginia