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The present volume contains essays on the modernization of private law in Europe and Latin America from the viewpoint of legal history. Through a comparison between different forms of legal development in various normative und cultural contexts, the papers seek to open up new research perspectives on the concept of modernization in the field of private law.

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Thorsten Keiser currently teaches private law and legal history at the University of Cologne. His research interests are modern comparative legal history and the history of labour law.

María Rosario Polotto is doctoral scholar at the Law School of the Pontifical University of Argentina, Assistant Professor of Legal History at the same University and at the University of Buenos Aires. Also she is a researcher of the Research Institute of Legal History. Her research interests concern the history of law in the twentieth century, especially the civil law.

Thomas Duve is the Managing Director of the Max-Planck-Institute for
European Legal History and Professor for Comparative Legal History at the
Goethe University Frankfurt. His research focuses on the legal history of the
early Modern Age and the Modern Era with particular interest in Ibero-
American legal history and the history of legal scholarship in the 20th
Century.

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