About us

Introducing Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft

The publisher trades under the name Nomos Verlag since 1964 and counts as one of the leading academic publishers in the fields of Law, Social Sciences and Humanities throughout the German-speaking world. Every year Nomos publishes more than 850 books and over 50 journals. Almost all of them are accessible online. Although being part of the Beck Group since 2002, Nomos has maintained to be an independent publisher and cooperates successfully with many publishers in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the UK and other countries.

Nomos over the Years

Early History

Nomos originated from August Lutzeyer Verlag which was situated in Baden-Baden since 1953. After World War II Lutzeyer established itself as a legal publisher with a special focus on loose-leaf text editions. In particular “Das deutsche Bundesrecht” has gained increasing significance over time. Ever since the passing of the Treaties of Rome in 1957 European legal provisions have also been thoroughly documented.

In 1963 the shareholders of Suhrkamp Verlag, Siegfried Unseld and the Swiss brothers Reinhardt, acquired August Lutzeyer Verlag. Shortly after an earlier acquisition of Insel Verlag by Suhrkamp, the three were especially interested in the printing shop that belonged to August Lutzeyer Verlag, as this was specializing in lightweight printing of small editions. In addition to this, the aspiring academic publisher was seen as a profitable investment.

Nomos as Part of Suhrkamp

Approximately a year after the acquisition, the publishing house was renamed Nomos Verlag. The name derives from the classical Greek term for “Law” (νόμος). Since the loose-leaf editions and other collections of legal texts, like the “Handbuch des Europäischen Rechts”, have never been mere editions of legislative texts, but have been incorporating various annotations, the publishing company steadily developed a wide program of legal commentaries and handbooks. Simultaneously an extensive academic program developed, including dissertations, habilitations and other monographs and anthologies.

At first Nomos focused on Public Law, European Law and International Law on the one hand, and Comparative Government, EU Studies and International Relations on the other. Gradually more fields of study were added. Until the turn of the millennium, Nomos established itself as one of the leading academic publishers in the fields of Law and Social Sciences.

Acquisition by C.H.Beck Verlag

In the end of the 1990s, the former shareholders decided to sell Nomos Verlag (presumably in view of a reform in Inheritance Tax Law). In 1998 Nomos was initially sold to Springer Verlag. Springer in turn was shortly after bought by Bertelsmann, who promptly sold Nomos to the shareholders of C.H.Beck Verlag in Munich, Hans-Dieter and Wolfgang Beck. To date Hans-Dieter and Wolfgang Beck are owners of the publishing house. CEO is Thomas Gottlöber.

Expansion since 2009

Since 2009, Nomos Verlag has acquired several smaller academic publishers with a programme focus on the humanities and social sciences: This began in 2009 with the acquisition of Reinhard Fischer Verlag, which was integrated into the Nomos Verlag programme as "Edition Reinhard Fischer". Since 2015, Edition Sigma has been part of Nomos Verlag and has also been integrated into the main programme. The first publishing house to be continued as a separate brand and imprint was Tectum Verlag (2017), followed by Ergon Verlag (2017), Academia Verlag (2018), Rombach Wissenschaft (2020), Verlag Karl Alber (2022) and Georg Olms Verlag (2023).

Programmatic Focus

Nomos is one of the few publishers offering a wide range of academic books and journals that ensures a cross-disciplinary display of current topics.

Books

Every year approximately 1.100 books are published, ranging from distinguished academic theses to commentaries and handbooks, and including an excellent textbook program.

Academic Literature

The publishing focus today is on the publication of outstanding academic works from the fields of law, social sciences and the humanities. The legal sciences are covered in their entirety, including the basic subjects, comparative law and references to neighbouring disciplines. In the social sciences and humanities, the main programme focuses on political science and European studies, sociology and media and communication studies as well as traditional economics, but also social work and the social economy. Other programme areas have been significantly expanded in recent years: These include modern history, health sciences, cultural studies, philosophy and religious studies. The imprints cover almost all of the humanities, such as linguistics, literature, musicology, art history, oriental studies, classical studies and theology. 

In addition to qualification publications and other monographs as well as anthologies on individual topics, a large number of scholarly handbooks are published, which are aimed at students, researchers and teachers as well as practitioners in business, administration, associations, etc.

In order to optimize the distribution of works on international subjects, Nomos frequently collaborates with publishers from Austria, Switzerland, as well as other European countries. This is especially true for the steadily growing amount of academic works in English. For these titles, Nomos cooperates closely with prestigious academic publishers in the UK.

Legal Commentaries and Handbooks

A comprehensive book programme for legal practitioners has emerged from the legal text documentation. The range of commentaries, handbooks, form books and individual commentaries on practically relevant topics has been significantly expanded since 2000 and now covers all federal law, significant parts of state law as well as European Union law and international law. The legal practitioner programme is in turn divided into several series: These include the large, sometimes multi-volume Nomos commentaries, the more compact hand commentaries and - especially for social law - the teaching and practical commentaries. In addition, there are stand-alone commentaries such as the large commentary on European Union law and newer formats such as the keyword commentaries or the annotated procedural forms. There are also handbooks, form books and shorter introductory works.

Since 2010 Nomos, C.H.Beck and UK based Hart Publishing have been co-publishing more than 50 English language commentaries and handbooks covering select topics of European and International Law.

Textbooks

In the years since 2008, Nomos Verlag has developed a wide range of legal study literature. In addition to the main series NomosLehrbuch, NomosStudium and NomosReferendariat, there are study books and compendia on national law as well as numerous introductions to legal topics - also for non-lawyers. In the area of social sciences and humanities, the "study courses" on political science, sociology, social work, social economy, ethics, health & care, media & communication, religion and economics are just as noteworthy as the Nomos library and a large number of other textbooks on a wide range of topics from the programme spectrum. In the humanities programme of the imprints, the textbook series "intro" was founded for several disciplines.

Journals

Nomos publishes more than 80 specialist journals: The range covers all programme areas and extends from journals for practitioners to highly specialised academic journals. Many of the journals are leading in their field (e.g. the 'Zeitschrift für Urheber- und Medienrecht - ZUM', the 'Zeitschrift für Umweltrecht - ZUR', the 'Medien & Kommunikationswissenschaft - M&K', the 'Blätter der Wohlfahrtspflege - BdW', the 'Zeitschrift für Politik - ZfP' or the 'Soziale Welt - SozW'). There are also numerous inter- and intradisciplinary journals such as 'Leviathan', 'Kritische Justiz - KJ' and 'Rechtswissenschaft'.

Electronic Publications

Almost the entire publishing programme is also available electronically. Books and journals that are primarily aimed at legal practitioners are published via the beck-online database.  In addition to journal, form and commentary modules, annotated special laws, a module for municipal lawyers and lawyers, Nomos also offers modules on labour law, federal law, inheritance law, child and youth welfare law, family law, product compliance, social work, social law and administrative law. Further information on all online modules can be found in the NomosShop.
The academic programme, the textbooks and the English-language commentaries are accessible via the publisher's own platform Nomos eLibrary. This bilingual platform, which is primarily geared towards the needs of academic libraries and their users, is also used by numerous other specialised publishers.