Abstract

In their recent works on pre-revolutionary France, Francesco Di Donato and Michel Troper highlight how the theories of legal sources have contributed to determine the origins and growth of the modern State not less than the doctrines of sovereignty. Moving from these assumptions, this essay points out the evolutionary methodology upon which Di Donato's and Troper's historical and theoretical investigations are based; it is then analyzed the very concept of legal source and its crisis within legal dogmatic and theory of law; finally, the narratives concerning the death of the State developed in the last two centuries are compared.