Question

In his revisionist study of seventeenth-century English Admiralty jurisdiction, legal historian Geoffrey Sterling contends that customary maritime law was not absorbed harmoniously into common law doctrine, but was instead aggressively subordinated through common-law writs of prohibition. While Sterling's archival survey of merchant petitions provides compelling documentation of institutional friction, his overarching claim—that this centralizing maneuver extinguished local mercantile dispute resolution—overlooks the persistent vitality of informal port arbitration. Nonetheless, Sterling's work provides an essential corrective to the long-standing assumption of an amicable procedural synthesis.

Which of the following characterizations best describes the author's attitude toward Sterling's study?