Max Radin


Max Radin was an American legal scholar, philologist, and author. The noted anthropological scholar Paul Radin was his younger brother.

Life and work

Max Radin, son of the rabbi Adolph Moses Radin, was born in Kempen, German Empire, he 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 and the School of Law at Columbia University. 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 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, at Pacific University in Oregon and Columbia University. In 1949 he was member of Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. In 1948 he received a doctorate at 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