Roscoe Pound

Theodore Frank Thomas Plucknett

Readings on the History and System of the Common Law

The Cult of the Irrational

The Scope and Purpose of Sociological Jurisprudence

Outlines of Lectures on Jurisprudence

An Outline of a Course Delivered at the Trade Union College Under the Auspices of the Boston Central Labor Union, Spring Term, 1919

An Introduction to American Law

Being Part 1 of the Maxims of Equity

Maxims

Readings in Roman Law and the Civil Law and Modern Codes as Developments Thereof

The Decadence of Equity ...

Social Control Through Law is remarkable in manner and style. Roscoe Pound shows himself to be a jurist, philosopher, and scientist. For Pound, the subject matter of law involves examining manifestations of human nature which require social control to assert or realize individual expectations. Pound formulates a list of social-ethical principles, with a three-fold purpose. First, they are meant to identify and explain human claims, demands, or interests of a given social order. Second, they express what the majority of individuals in a given society want the law to do. Third, they are meant to guide the courts in applying the law. Pound distinguishes between individual interests, public interests, and social interests. He warns that these three types of interests are overlapping and interdependent and that most claims, demands, and desires can be placed in all three categories. Pound's theory of social interests is crucial to his thinking about law and lies at the conceptual core of sociological jurisprudence. Pound explains that rights unlike interests, are plagued with a multiplicity of meanings. He rejects the idea of rights as being natural or inalienable, and argues that to the contrary, interests are natural. The contemporary significance of the book is aptly demonstrated by the skyrocketing rate of litigation in our postmodern society. As the influence of familial and religious institutions declines, the courts exert an unprecedented degree of control over the public and private lives of most Americans. Law is now the paramount agency of social control. In the new introduction, A. Javier TreviNo outlines the principal aspects of Roscoe Pound's legal philosophy as it is conveyed in several of his books, articles, and addresses, and shows their relationship to Social Control Through Law. This book is an insightful, concise summary of Pound's ideas that, after more than half a century, remains surprisingly fresh and relevant. It will doubtlessly continue to engage jurists, legal theorists, and sociologists for many years to come.

Social Control Through Law

Pound, Roscoe. An Introduction to the Philosophy of Law. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1922. 307 pp. Reprinted 2003 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. LCCN 2002044351. ISBN 1-58477-327-8. Cloth. $70. * Pound's Introduction outlines the philosophical foundations that support Anglo-American common law. A written version of the Storrs Lectures delivered at Yale University during the academic year 1921-1922. "Dean Pound has given us a clear, concise introduction to the philosophy of the law. It is so concise that it is impossible to summarize it so as to give any idea of its wealth of learning....An excellent, impartial and concise presentation of the subject..." William Herbert Page, Harvard Law Review 36:115-117 cited in Marke, A Catalogue of the Law Collection at New York University (1953) 922.

An Introduction to the Philosophy of Law

Roscoe Pound, former dean of Harvard Law School, delivered a series of lectures at the University of Calcutta in 1948. In these lectures, he criticized virtually every modern mode of interpreting the law because he believed the administration of justice had lost its grounding and recourse to enduring ideals. Now published in the U.S. for the first time, Pound's lectures are collected in Liberty Fund's The Ideal Element in Law, Pound's most important contribution to the relationship between law and liberty. The Ideal Element in Law was a radical book for its time and is just as meaningful today as when Pound's lectures were first delivered. Pound's view of the welfare state as a means of expanding government power over the individual speaks to the front-page issues of the new millennium as clearly as it did to America in the mid-twentieth century. Pound argues that the theme of justice grounded in enduring ideals is critical for America. He views American courts as relying on sociological theories, political ends, or other objectives, and in so doing, divorcing the practice of law from the rule of law and the rule of law from the enduring ideal of law itself. Roscoe Pound is universally recognized as one of the most important legal minds of the early twentieth century. Considered by many to be the dean of American jurisprudence, Pound was a former Justice of the Supreme Court of Nebraska and served as dean of Harvard Law School from 1916 to 1936. Please note: This title is available as an ebook for purchase on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and iTunes.

The Ideal Element in Law

The Theory of Judicial Decision

The Future of the Criminal Law

Interpretations of Legal History

Among books of similar scope, this is the recognized American classic. Those who read this book will have the strange privilege of thinking things together in the law from the beginning of written history to the moment Pound sent his writings to the printer. Through this writing of Pound's they can see what it is to deal with the whole objective world in the law as a freeman should, knowing how things have happened fortunately or unfortunately, logically or through some kind of hardly explicable human conduct.

Address of Dr. Roscoe Pound ... at Ceremonies in the Coolidge Auditorium of the Library of Congress on Sunday Afternoon, December 15, 1946

Magna Carta and Constitutional Guarantees of Liberty

With Particular Reference to the Development of Bar Associations in the United States

Roscoe Pound

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