David Rabban on the European Origins of Roscoe Pound's Sociological Jurisprudence

David M. Rabban, University of Texas School of Law, has published Pound's Sociological Jurisprudence: European Roots and American Applications in Le "moment 1900": Critique sociale et critique sociologique du droit en Europe et aux Etats-Unis (Paris: Editions Pantheon Assas, 2015). Here is the abstract.

Roscoe Pound, widely viewed by his contemporaries and subsequent scholars as the most important American legal thinker during the first decades of the twentieth century, was by far the leading proponent of the “critique social et critique sociologique du droit aux Etats-Unis.” This article stresses the extent to which Pound relied on German and French legal scholars in developing what he called “sociological jurisprudence.” It then examines how Pound applied its central themes to propose legal reforms designed to address the social and economic problems of a society transformed by urbanization and corporate capitalism. It closes by examining Pound’s legacy.

Download the essay from SSRN at the link.