Henri Lévy-Bruhl, born in Paris, became both a professor of Roman law and a legal sociologist. As a Roman law professor (his first inclination), he taught at various French universities, including Grenoble (Switzerland), Lille, and Paris.

Lévy-Bruhl wrote more than fifteen books on topics in legal sociology, some of which were translated into English, German, and Spanish. He was heavily influenced by the work and theories of Émile Durkheim (1858–1917), and in this vein set forward a series of theories regarding the sources of law and the study of law. With respect to the concept of law, Lévy-Bruhl indicated that the law was a specific social phenomenon, made up of diverse types of norms. These norms had some form of objectivity in the sense that they ...