D.E. Serebrennikov [Rev.] Ehrlich E. Fundamental Principles of the Sociology of Law. [Russ. ed.: Erlikh O. Osnovopolozhenie sociologii prava. Transl. from Germ. by M.V. Antonov; Ed. by V.G. Grafskiy, Yu.I. Grevtsov. St Petersburg: OOO “Universitetskii izdatel’skii konsortsium” publ., 2011.]

It’s commonly believed that the book “Fundamental Principles of the Sociology of Law” (1913) of Eugen Erlich (1862–1922) was historically the first work in which was made an attempt to create a sociology of law as a specific scientific discipline. However the translation and publication of this work in Russian (2011) was insignificant to the sociological community, while in the English-language literature of the last decades we can observe a growing interest to the classic. The author of the article tries to emphasize the main points and advantages of the theory of the “living law” of Ehrlich, showing how the “Fundamental principles...” may be interesting for the modern reader. For this, the author of the article offers a specific strategy for reading the book.