Geniuses Keep Away from Law

何柏生China Democracy and Legal System Publishing House · ChinaMar 2022

Rating 4.0
Word count
75 words
Chapters
14
ISBN
9787516216279

Tags

Motivation and Growth Humanistic CareAcademic StudyIntellectual CommentaryEclectic ReadingCross-Cultural View

Summary

This book is a collection of essays in three parts. The first part comprises more than ten pieces on foreign legal culture; the second, more than ten on domestic legal culture; and the third consists largely of literary sketches. Certain views and intellectual leanings in the book—such as law's borrowing from mathematics and contemporary Chinese jurisprudence's absorption of legal resources past and present, Chinese and foreign—may serve to stimulate and advance the development of Chinese jurisprudence.

Editor's review

This is a collection of essays best read slowly. The author, He Baisheng, moves with a legal scholar's eye between Chinese and foreign legal culture and literary sketches. The first part discusses foreign legal culture, the second focuses on domestic legal culture, and the third turns to more literary essays, forming a progression from outside to inside, from the professional to the personal. The book's arguments—that jurisprudence can draw on mathematical methods, and that contemporary Chinese legal scholarship should absorb legal resources from both past and present, at home and abroad—touch on fundamental questions of legal methodology and scholarly vision, and offer inspiration to readers concerned with the direction of Chinese jurisprudence. The writing is unpretentious and the pieces are short, suited to casual reading in fragmented moments like commuting or before bed, and also suitable as light introductory reading on legal culture. One caveat: these essays value insight and interest over systematic argumentation, so readers should come with a thinking mind rather than expecting definitive conclusions.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Read the parts in order—first the foreign legal culture section, then the domestic section, and finally the literary sketches—to appreciate the shifting layers.
  2. Pause briefly after each piece and note one or two points that strike you, building up reading notes.
  3. When encountering interdisciplinary discussions such as jurisprudence drawing on mathematics, extend your thinking in light of your own background; don't feel you must grasp everything at once.
  4. Treat the literary sketches in the third part as a change of pace, reading them in scattered moments during commutes or before bed, keeping a relaxed mindset.

About the publisher

China Democracy and Legal System Publishing House China · Founded in 1989

China Democracy and Legal System Publishing House focuses on professional legal publishing. Its output covers working materials for state organs of power, compilations of laws and regulations, legal popularization readers for the public, law textbooks and documentation on people's congress work, with law, politics and social sciences as common categories. Representative titles in the catalog include the Civil Code of the People's Republic of China, the Constitution of the People's Republic of China and the Ecological Environment Code of the People's Republic of China, alongside practice- and research-oriented works such as Legislators Explaining the Law: Li Yuan's Reports on Legal Interpretation and On Record Review and Constitutional Review. Its authors include Li Yuan, Qin Qianhong, the General Office of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress and editorial teams. The press emphasizes accuracy in legal texts and the organization of practical people's congress materials, while also serving public legal education.

Contents

  1. 版权信息
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. 6
  8. 7
  9. 8
  10. 9
  11. 10
  12. 11
  13. 12
  14. 13

FAQ

Can I understand this book without a legal background? Yes. This is a collection of essays, not a textbook. Most pieces start from specific topics or phenomena, the language is plain, and they don't rely on specialized terminology. Readers without a legal background can focus on the legal-culture anecdotes and the author's viewpoints; if you encounter unfamiliar institutional background, skip it for now and look it up after finishing.
What do the three parts cover, and do I need to read them in order? The first part mostly covers foreign legal culture topics, the second mostly domestic legal culture topics, and the third consists largely of literary sketches. Reading in order lets you feel the transition from outside to inside, from the professional to the personal, but each piece is relatively independent, so you can also jump around according to interest—there's no need to read from start to finish.
Is the book's view on jurisprudence drawing on mathematics worth attention? This is one of the more discussion-worthy parts of the book, involving an expansion of legal research methods. It does not propose replacing jurisprudence with mathematics, but suggests that jurisprudence can draw conceptual tools from mathematics and other disciplines. Readers can treat it as a starting point and judge its feasibility in light of their own fields—no need to take it as a settled conclusion.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

何柏生 Author · China

He Baisheng is a Chinese author about whom limited public information is available. What can currently be confirmed comes mainly from his representative work, Genius Stays Away from Law. The book is categorized as inspirational growth writing, and its title carries a distinctly argumentative tone, suggesting that the author attempts to examine the relationship between genius and personal growth from the perspective of legal studies. The topics discussed in the book may touch on personal choices, the development of talent, and life paths. Because relatively little background material exists, the author's life experience, educational background, and creative trajectory cannot yet be described in detail. Nevertheless, from this single known work, it is possible to see that He Baisheng's writing tends to raise questions through concise propositions, using titles or themes to guide readers in reflecting on the relationship between the self and their environment. For readers interested in growth and life-choice literature, this work offers a perspective worth noting.