The Société de législation comparée (SLC), founded in 1869, is the doyen of learned societies devoted to comparative law, and continues to celebrate its anniversaries, as evidenced by the present volume, prepared on the occasion of its 150th anniversary. This work is part of a well-established process of self-celebration: the SLC began by devoting two volumes to its 50th anniversary, published in 1922, while the festivities organised for its 80th anniversary were reported in the Revue internationale de droit comparé in 1949. Finally, a two-volume Livre du centenaire de la Société de législation comparée was published in 1969.
Was another volume needed to review the history of this now well-known society? Beyond the texts published on the occasion of its anniversaries, the historiography devoted to the history of comparative law in France is now rich. To illustrate this, let us mention three recent publications: Le droit comparé au xxie siècle, a book published in 2015 that includes discussion of the SLC; Yannick Falélavaki's PhD dissertation on legal comparatism, defended in 2016; and a volume of the legal history journal Clio@Themis dedicated to the history of comparative law, published in 2017. To these three examples could be added a substantial number of papers, dealing with more specific aspects of the history of comparative law. While the book does not revolutionise the state of our knowledge, it does make a valuable contribution to the history of comparative law in two respects: not only do the proposed articles interrogate in detail the history of the SLC, they also address the more recent, lesser-known periods.
To read the full review, please click here. Online access is free for members of the European Society for Comparative Legal History.
DOI: 10.1080/2049677X.2025.2580111
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