The Reign of Law; Marbury v. Madison and the Construction of America

by Paul W. Kahn

• ISBN13: 9780300083927
• ISBN10: 0300083920
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2002-07-11
• Publisher: Yale University Press

Summary

In this groundbreaking book, Paul W. Kahn uses modern cultural theory to investigate America's most profound political myth: the belief that the rule of law is rule by the people. Kahn explores the elements of the myth, the rhetoric of law that sustains the myth, and the world of meaning the myth creates. He shows us that law must be central to religious, anthropological, and philosophical studies of American life. Book jacket.

Author Biography

Paul W. Kahn, Robert W. Winner Professor of Law and the Humanities at Yale Law School

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
Introduction: In America the Law Is King	p. 1
Studying the Rule of Law
Marbury and the Historical Origins of the American Legal Imagination	p. 9
An Archaeological Approach to Law	p. 18
The Temporality of Law
Political Time: Law and Revolution	p. 49
Locating the Self in Political Time	p. 75
The Rhetoric of the Judicial Opinion
The Rule of Law and the Suppression of the Subject	p. 103
The Strategies of Law	p. 134
Law and Representation
The Representative Character of Law's Appearance	p. 177
Representing the Opinion of the People	p. 206
Conclusion: Power and Knowledge in the Rule of Law	p. 230
Marbury v. Madison	p. 241
Notes	p. 259
Index	p. 299
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