LibGuides: Legal Studies : Law and Society

Relevant Subject & Class Guides

Anthropology
by Lisa Morrison Last Updated Aug 13, 2025 744 views this year
Black Studies Guide
by Lisa Morrison Last Updated Aug 26, 2025 738 views this year
Campaigns and Elections
by Yiming Guo Last Updated Jan 27, 2025 137 views this year
Census (U.S. population and demographic resources/information)
by Yiming Guo Last Updated Jul 28, 2025 268 views this year
Communication Guide
by Lisa Morrison Last Updated Aug 26, 2025 1095 views this year
Educational Studies Guide
by Lisa Morrison Last Updated Oct 6, 2025 702 views this year
Evaluating Information Sources
by Lisa Morrison Last Updated Apr 15, 2025 390 views this year
Foreign Governments
by Yiming Guo Last Updated Jan 27, 2025 610 views this year
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Global Health Guide
by Lisa Morrison Last Updated Aug 13, 2025 1079 views this year
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by Yiming Guo Last Updated Sep 2, 2025 2903 views this year
History Guide
by Ashten Stone Last Updated Nov 12, 2025 1033 views this year
International Studies Guide
by Lisa Morrison Last Updated Aug 26, 2025 1294 views this year
Journalism
by Ashten Stone Last Updated Sep 12, 2025 390 views this year
News Sources
by Lisa Morrison Last Updated Sep 12, 2025 1405 views this year
Philosophy Guide
by Ashten Stone Last Updated Oct 29, 2025 747 views this year
Politics & Public Affairs Guide
by Lisa Morrison Last Updated Oct 6, 2025 1253 views this year
Queer Studies Guide
by Ashten Stone Last Updated Nov 12, 2025 673 views this year
State and Local Government Information
by Yiming Guo Last Updated Nov 20, 2024 143 views this year
Women's & Gender Studies Guide
by Stephanie Kays Last Updated Oct 8, 2025 772 views this year

Interdisciplinary Resources

Ancient Law by Henry Sumner Maine
ISBN: 9781139177085

Publication Date: 2013

This hugely influential work of 1861 is probably the one for which Sir Henry Maine (1822-88) is best remembered. Published at a time when the evolution of institutions as well as of species was a topic of widespread interest, this remains a landmark work in the intellectual history of legal studies.
Anthropology and Law by Mark Goodale; Sally Engle Merry (Foreword by)
ISBN: 9781479836130

Publication Date: 2017

Anthropology and Law provides a comprehensive overview of the anthropology of law in the post-Cold War era. The book's chapters cover a range of intersecting areas including language and law, history, regulation, indigenous rights, and gender. For a complete understanding of the consequential ways in which anthropologists have studied, interacted with, and critiqued, the ways and means of law, Anthropology and Law is required reading.
Explaining Law by Larry D. Barnett
ISBN: 9004281207

Publication Date: 2015

Sociologist-lawyer Larry D. Barnett advances the macrosociological thesis that, in nations that are structurally complex and democratically governed, concepts and doctrines of law on society-central social activities are fashioned by society-level conditions, not by particular (or even prominent) individuals.
History and Power in the Study of Law by June Starr (Editor); Jane F. Collier (Editor)
ISBN: 9781501728129

Publication Date: 2018

Chapters by anthropologists, sociologists, and law professors, using anthropological rather than legal methodologies, provide original analyses of particular legal developments. Some contributors adopt an interpretative approach, focusing on law as a system of meaning; others adopt a materialistic approach, analyzing the economic and political forces that historically shaped relations between social groups.
Law, Culture and Society by Roger. Cotterrell
ISBN: 9780754625117

Publication Date: 2006

This book presents a distinctive approach to the study of law in society, focusing on the sociological interpretation of legal ideas. Through a range of specific studies, closely interrelated and building on each other, the book seeks to integrate the sociology of law with other kinds of legal analysis and engages directly with current juristic debates in legal theory and comparative law.
Law and Society Today by Riaz Tejani
ISBN: 9780520968400

Publication Date: 2019

Law and Society Today is a problem-oriented survey of socio-legal studies, with a unique emphasis on recent historical and political developments. Whereas other texts focus heavily on criminal procedure, this book foregrounds the significant changes of the 2000s and 2010s, including neoliberalism, migration, multiculturalism, and the large influence of law and economics in law teaching, policy debates, and judicial decision-making.
Law As Culture by Lawrence Rosen
ISBN: 9780691136448

Publication Date: 2008

In Law as Culture, Lawrence Rosen invites readers to consider how the facts that are adduced in a legal forum connect to the ways in which facts are constructed in other areas of everyday life, how the processes of legal decision-making partake of the logic by which the culture as a whole is put together, and how courts, mediators, or social pressures fashion a sense of the world as consistent with common sense and social identity.
Law in a Changing Society by W. Friedmann
ISBN: 9780520345355

Publication Date: 2023

This title was originally published in 1959.
Law in Many Societies by Lawrence M. Friedman (Editor); Rogelio Pérez-Perdomo (Editor); Manuel A. Gómez (Editor)
ISBN: 9780804763738

Publication Date: 2011

This law and society reader taps a rich and diverse literature to compare and contrast the legal experience of many different cultures and nations.
Letters of the Law by Sora Y. Han
ISBN: 9780804795012

Publication Date: 2015

In Letters of the Law, Sora Y. Han argues that colorblindness is a foundational fantasy of law that not only informs individual and collective ideas of race, but also structures the imaginative capacities of American legal interpretation.
On the Rule of Law by Brian Z. Tamanaha
ISBN: 9780521604659

Publication Date: 2004

This 2004 book explores the history, politics, and theory surrounding the rule of law ideal, beginning with classical Greek and Roman ideas, elaborating on medieval contributions to the rule of law, and articulating the role played by the rule of law in liberal theory and liberal political systems.
The Rule of Law in the Real World by Paul Gowder
ISBN: 9781316480182

Publication Date: 2016

In The Rule of Law in the Real World, Paul Gowder defends a new conception of the rule of law as the coordinated control of power and demonstrates that the rule of law, thus understood, creates and preserves social equality in a state.
Sociology of Law by Qiliang Wang
ISBN: 9789811655081

Publication Date: 2022

This book, based on extensive ethnographic material, analyzes the complex relationships between the law and various social controls, helping to answer the question of how social order is formed. Formal law exists in a web of complex structures and meanings. Accordingly, legal study must take into account multiple types of order, allowing us to understand in depth the strengths and weaknesses, reasonable and absurdity, and successes and failures of the law.
Studies in Law, Politics, and Society by Austin Sarat (Editor)
ISBN: 1800712200

Publication Date: 2021

This volume of Studies in Law, Politics and Society explores issues around hatred and the law.

Researching Legal Topics in Other Disciplines

Legal Studies intersects with many disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. Find databases below which might help your find more related research.

Economics

EconLit
Selected abstracts of the world's economic literature, produced by the American Economic Association, 1969- .

Off Campus Access: Authenticate with your MyDenison login.

Subject Areas: Economics

EconLit is a comprehensive, indexed bibliography with selected abstracts of the world's economic literature, produced by the American Economic Association. It includes coverage of over 400 major journals as well as articles in collective volumes (essays, proceedings, etc.), books, book reviews, dissertations, and working papers licensed from the Cambridge University Press Abstracts of Working Papers in Economics.

Format: Index to Journal Articles
Dates of Coverage: 1969-
Update Schedule: monthly
Database Producer: American Economic Association

Educational Studies

Education Full Text
Indexes core international periodicals, monographs, and yearbooks in education, 1983 to present.

Off Campus Access: Authenticate with your MyDenison login.

Subject Areas: Education, Library Science

Education Full Text indexes core international periodicals, monographs, and yearbooks in education. Topics include a wide range of contemporary education issues, including government funding, instructional media, multicultural education, religious education, student counseling, competency-based, and information technology. This database cites articles in English-language periodicals and yearbooks published in the United States and elsewhere. English language books related to education published in 1995 or later are also indexed.

Format: Index to Journal Articles
Dates of Coverage: 1983-
Update Schedule: Monthly.
Database Producer: Ebsco and H.W. Wilson Company.

Politics and Public Affairs

Political Science Complete
Full text articles on political science

Off Campus Access: Authenticate with your MyDenison login.

Subject Areas:Political Science
Political Science Complete is a full-text research database covering political topics with a worldwide focus, including international relations, political theory and comparative politics. With hundreds of full-text journals and thousands of conference papers, it is a valuable resource for political science researchers and government institutions.

Format:full text
Dates of Coverage:
Database Producer: Ebsco

Psychology

APA PsycInfo (formerly PsycINFO)
Citations and summaries of journal articles, book chapters, books, and dissertations, all in the field of psychology, 1887 to present. Keywords: behavior, psychology

Off Campus Access: Authenticate with your MyDenison login.

Subject Areas: Psychology, Sociology & Anthropology, Education, Medicine

PsycINFO contains citations and summaries of journal articles, book chapters, books, and dissertations, all in the field of psychology and the psychological aspects of related disciplines, such as medicine, psychiatry, nursing, sociology, education, pharmacology, physiology, linguistics, anthropology, business, and law.

Journal coverage includes international material selected from more than 2000 periodicals written in over 35 languages. Current chapter and book coverage includes worldwide English-language material published from 1887 to present.

Format: Index to Journal Articles, Book Chapters, Books, and Dissertations
Dates of Coverage: 1887 to present
Update Schedule: Weekly
Database Producer: American Psychological Association / EBSCOHost

Sociology

SocINDEX (Sociological Index) with Full Text
Full text journal articles, indexing & informative abstracts for "core" coverage journals dating back to 1895, plus "priority" coverage journals and "selective" coverage journals.

Off Campus Access: Authenticate with your MyDenison login.

Subject Areas: Communication, Economics, Education, Physical Education, International Studies, Sociology & Anthropology, Political Science, Asian Studies, Black Studies, Queer Studies, Latin American & Caribbean Studies, Women's Studies

Sociological Index (SocINDEX) provides full text of journal articles, and indexing and informative abstracts for "core" coverage journals dating back to 1895, plus "priority" coverage journals and "selective" coverage journals. Extensive indexing for books, monographs, conference papers, and other sources is included. SocINDEX with Full Text features subject headings from a sociological thesaurus designed by subject experts and expert lexicographers. Searchable cited references are also provided.

SocINDEX covers all sub-disciplines of sociology, including abortion, criminology & criminal justice, demography, ethnic & racial studies, gender studies, marriage & family, political sociology, religion, rural & urban sociology, social development, social psychology, social structure, social work, socio-cultural anthropology, sociological history, sociological research, sociological theory, substance abuse & other addictions, violence and many others.

Format: Index to Journal Articles
Database Producer: EBSCO Publishing.