“Regulation and Private Law” by Alexander Hellgardt, a former senior research fellow at the MPI for Tax Law and Public Finance, has been recommended as one of this year’s best law books.

In his habilitation thesis written at the Institute, Hellgardt shows that private law can be conceived as a tool which the legislator may use to regulate economy or society. He examines what that means for private law theory and its consequences for jurisprudence and legislature.

Readers should not be deterred by the 750-page book, says Prof. Dr. Reinhard Zimmermann in the name of the jury in “Neue Juristische Wochenschrift” (NJW). “Given the difficulty of the subject, the book deals in a stimulating and accessible way with the present and the future of private law, from a theoretical and from a practical point of view,” he says.

For more than 20 years, a group of legal scholars have agreed every year on a new list of books “worth reading for every lawyer” and have published their list in “Neue Juristische Wochenschrift” (NJW). This year’s list comprises five books in German and recommends two law books from abroad.

Best Law Books of 2017

Alexander Hellgardt, Regulierung und Privatrecht, Mohr Siebeck, 2016, XXXIV, 848 S.

Martin Heckel, Martin Luthers Reformation und das Recht, Mohr Siebeck, 2016, XIV, 988 S.

Daniel Damler, Konzern und Moderne: Die verbundene juristische Person in der visuellen Kultur 1880–1980, Vittorio Klosterman, 2016, XI, 371 S.

Angelika Siehr, Das Recht am öffentlichen Raum, Mohr Siebeck, 2016, XXXIV, 770 S.

Anika Klafki, Risiko und Recht: Risiko und Katastrophen im Spannungsfeld von Effektivität, demokratischer Legitimation und rechtsstaatlichen Grundsätzen am Beispiel von Pandemien, Mohr Siebeck, 2017, XXIX, 438 S.

Reading recommendations from abroad

Philippe Sands, East West Street: On the Origins of “Genocide” and “Crimes against Humanity”, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2016, 425 S.

James Whitman, Hitler’s American Model, Princeton University Press, 2017, 208 S.