Max Radin

Max Radin (* March 29 1880 in Kempen; † June 22 1950 in Berkeley) was an American legal scholar, philologist, and author.

Life and Work

Max Radin, son of the rabbi Adolph Moses Radin, emigrated with his family to the United States and grew up in New York. He received his early education from his father. He studied at the City College of New York ( BA 1899) and the School of Law at Columbia University (LL.B. 1902). After graduation, he worked as a lawyer and public school teacher in New York and continued his studies at Columbia University, where in 1909, with a thesis on ancient Associations, he was granted a PhD (Doctor) Ph.D.. From 1907 he worked at Newton High School. In 1918 he was appointed Instructor of Law at Columbia University.

In 1919, Radin left New York and went to California. At the University of California, Berkeley, he became a professor of Law, where he remained until his retirement in 1948. He was named the John Henry Boalt Professor of Law in 1940. During his time at Berkeley, he was a visiting professor at the Yale Law School (1940), at Pacific University in Oregon (1946) and Columbia University (1947). In 1949 he was member of Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. In 1948 he received a doctorate of Whitman College.

In his work, Radin combined philological research into Roman and civil law with current legal issues. He published more than 700 works, including several professional and popular scientific monographs and manuals.

Works

• The Legislation of the Greeks and Romans on Corporations. New York 1910 (Dissertation)
• The Jews among the Greeks and Romans. Philadelphia 1916
• Handbook of Roman Law. St. Paul (MN) 1925
• Life of People in Biblical Times. Philadelphia 1929
• The Awful Pursuit of Gain. Boston / New York 1929
• The Trial of Jesus of Nazareth. Chicago 1931
• Handbook of the Anglo-American Legal History. St. Paul (MN) 1936
• Artikel in Pauly-Wissowas Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft (RE), Band XVII,2 (1937) und XVIII,1 (1939): Obligatio, Obsignatio, Obvagulatio, Oratio
• The Law and Mr. Smith. New York 1938
• Marcus Brutus. New York / London 1939
• Manners and Morals of Business. Indianapolis 1939
• Law as Logic and Experience. New Haven / London 1940
• The Day of Reckoning. New York 1943
• The Law and You. New York 1948
• Epicurus, My Master. Chapel Hill (NC) 1949
• Radin’s Law Dictionary. New York 1951

Further Reading

• Ward W. Briggs: Radin, Max. In: Biographical Dictionary of North American Classicists. Greenwood Press, Westport CT u. a. 1994, ISBN 0-313-24560-6, S. 514–515.