A widely informative handbook with a scent of theoretical unilateralism: Apropos of Pribán's handbook on sociology of law

Abstract

This essay offers a detailed review of the Research Handbook on the Sociology of Law edited by Jirí Pribán in 2020. The author proceeds to a scrutiny of the various essays collected in this volume, whose importance as an updated overview of the state of the art in this area of study is unquestioned. He also observes that, in addition to certain gaps that are inevitable in a work of such scope, this handbook ends up offering a somewhat unilateral vision of law, in that it sees it, predominantly, as a tool of social integration, while forgetting the weight of social conflict and the ambivalent roles that law may play accordingly.