Durkheim and Early Law and Society History

French sociologists' interest in law dates to the end of the nineteenth century when Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) established sociology as the social science. Without qualifying his approach as legal-sociology, Durkheim in La division du travail social (1893,The Division of Labor in Society, 1933) used law to understand the forms of social solidarity. Furthermore, the sociological journal that he founded,l'Année Sociologique, accommodated, since its first issues, an important place for works on law.

At the same time, certain law professors became interested in sociology and the works of Durkheim. One of them, Léon Duguit (1859–1928), maintained ...