The innovative and revolutionary scholarship of the eminent Austrian legal theorist and professor of Roman law, Eugen Ehrlich (1862-1922) is of a very high caliber. His work has not only held its place well in view of what legal theory, especially sociological legal theory, has to offer, but is also still a powerful challenge to positions in legal theory that are no longer defensible. The sociology of law has followed in a direct line of succession from Ehrlich's observations and ideas as a new and special discipline linking jurisprudence with sociology.

Because Ehrlich's texts in English have long been unavailable, many of his ideas, while commonplace in sociological research and theory, are not commonly attributed to his work. The new introduction by Klaus Ziegert addresses some of the reasons Ehrlich has been overlooked in the literature. In so doing, Siegert to sketches the context in which Ehrlich worked and discusses his major tenets.

Among the topics covered in Ziegert's substantial introduction to this volume is the current relevance of Ehrlich's work. He also addresses the key issues in socio-legal theory and methodology, which were touched upon by Ehrlich and are still very much at the cutting edge of socio-legal research and a sociological theory of law. This book will be of keen interest to students of sociological theory and law.

The innovative and revolutionary scholarship of the eminent Austrian legal theorist and professor of Roman law, Eugen Ehrlich (1862-1922), is of a very high caliber. His work has not only held its place well in view of what legal theory, especially sociological legal theory, has to offer, but is also still a powerful challenge to positions in legal theory that are no longer defensible. The sociology of law has followed in a direct line of succession from Ehrlich's observations and ideas as a new and special discipline linking jurisprudence with sociology.

Modern systems theory provides a new paradigm for the analysis of society. In this volume, Niklas Luhmann, its leading exponent, explores its implications for our understanding of law. Luhmann argues that current thinking about how law operates within a modern society is seriously deficient. In this volume he lays out the theoretical and methodological tools that, he argues, can advance our understanding of contemporary society and, in particular, of the identity, performance, and function of the legal system within that society. In systems theory, society is its communications: they are its empirical reality; the items that can be observed and studied. Systems theory identifies how communications operate within a physical world and how different sub-systems of communication operate alongside each other. In this volume, Luhmann uses systems theory to address a question central to legal theory: what differentiates law from other parts of society? However, unlike conventional legal theory, this volume seeks to provide an answer in terms of a general social theory: a methodology that answers this question in a manner applicable not only to law, but also to all the other complex and highly differentiated systems within modern society, such as politics, the economy, religion, the media, and education. This truly sociological approach offers profound insights into the relationships between law and all of these other social systems.