The author of Interpretations of Legal History is, as Dr.
Hazeltine points out, one of the foremost jurisprudential thinkers of our time, and in this book he displays a wide and intimate knowledge not only of the history of juristic thought and the law of England and America, but also of Germanic and Roman Law with their offshoots, and of Eastern laws and custom. The story of the rise and fall of the historical school, and the relation of its interpretations to the purposes of its time, is therefore treated with a breadth and originality which will astonish and delight the most profound and experienced lawyer. But it is the deductions which Dr. Pound draws from his story, and his new interpretations of legal science, rejected or ignored in the last century, which give the book its chief value. He summons jurists to take their proper place of leadership in the sphere of law-making, and makes short work of Savigny's theory that law is to be found, but not made.
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