Unter einem „neuen Himmel“? Wachstum und Wandel im juristischen Publikationswesen an der Wende zum 20. Jahrhundert

Summary Around 1900, legal literature and publishing in Germany underwent a significant process of expansion and transformation. This development is, in part, due to the codification of important areas of law, especially the advent of the German Civil Code. The new codes instigated a vast quantity of legal literature; legal commentaries took the lead in explaining the new law. However, it is only through a look at the history of books and publishing, as well as the general history of science, that the development of legal literature can be fully appreciated. This paper shows that the growth and transformation of legal literature before and after 1900 is part of a larger development, i.e. the emergence of a literary mass-market, on the one hand, and the formation of what Adolf von Harnack called a ‘large-scale industry of science’, on the other hand.