A History of American Law: Third Edition

by Friedman, Lawrence M.

• ISBN13: 9780684869889
• ISBN10: 0684869888
• Edition: 3rd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 4/1/2005
• Publisher: Touchstone

Summary

In this brilliant and immensely readable book, Lawrence M. Friedman tells the whole fascinating story of American law from its beginnings in the colonies to the present day. By showing how close the life of the law is to the economic and political life of the country, he makes a complex subject understandable and engrossing.A History of American Lawpresents the achievements and failures of the American legal system in the context of America's commercial and working world, family practices, and attitudes toward property, government, crime, and justice.Now completely revised and updated, this groundbreaking work incorporates new material regarding slavery, criminal justice, and twentieth-century law. For laymen and students alike, this remains the only comprehensive authoritative history of American law.

Author Biography

Lawrence M. Friedman is the Marion Rice Kirkwood Professor of Law at Stanford University.

Table of Contents

Preface to the Third Edition	ix
Prologue	xi
PART I The Beginnings: American Law in the Colonial Period	1	(62)
The Skeleton of Colonial Law: The Courts
The Colonial Judicial System in the Eighteenth Century
Civil Procedure
Land Law
Succession at Death
Criminal Law
Government, Law, and the Economy
Commerce and Labor
Slavery
The Poor Laws
Statute and Common Law in the Colonial Period
The Legal Profession
The Literature of the Law
PART II From the Revolution to the Middle of the Nineteenth Century: 1776--1850	63	(188)
The Republic of Bees	65	(40)
Revolutionary Ardor
Constitutions: Federal and State
The Judges
The Organization of Courts
Civil Procedure
The Law of Evidence
Outposts of the Law: The Frontier and the Civil Law Fringe	105	(15)
The Civil Law Fringe
Law and the Economy: 1776--1850	120	(20)
Laissez-Faire and Its Limits
The Business Corporation
The Law of Personal Status: Wives, Paupers, and Slaves	140	(27)
Marriage and Divorce
Family Property
Adoption
Poor Laws and Social Welfare
Slavery and African Americans
An American Law of Property	167	(22)
The Land: A National Treasure
The Law of Private Land
Boom and Bust: The Law of Mortgages
Succession: Wills and Trusts
Intellectual Property: Patents and Copyrights
The Law of Commerce and Trade	189	(18)
A Federal Question: Admiralty and General Commerce
Sale of Goods
Bankruptcy and Insolvency
Contract
Crime and Punishment: And a Footnote on Tort	207	(19)
Penal Law and Penal Reform
The Substantive Law of Crimes
The Crime of Punishment: The American Prison
A Footnote on Tort
The Bar and Its Works	226	(25)
The Bar
Organization of the Bar
Legal Education
The Literature of the Law
PART III American Law to the Close of the Nineteenth Century	251	(250)
Blood and Gold: Some Main Themes in the Law in the Last Half of the Nineteenth Century	253	(26)
The New Era
Organic Law
State Constitutions
The West
Judges and Courts: 1850--1900	279	(14)
The Judges
Judicial Organization
Procedure and Practice: An Age of Reform	293	(16)
Mr. Field's Code
Appellate Courts
Codification and Reform
The Land and Other Property	309	(20)
The Transformation of Land Law
The Public Land
Property Law and the Dynasts
Landlord and Tenant
Mortgages
The Decline of Dower
A Tangle of Titles
Intellectual Property: Patents, Copyrights, and Trademarks
Administrative Law and Regulation of Business	329	(21)
The Coming of the Bureaucrats
Regulating the Infrastructure: Banks, Insurance, and Railroads
Occupational Licensing: And the Pull of Public Health
The Great Antitrust Act
Torts	350	(17)
The Underdogs: 1850--1900	367	(23)
The Dependent Poor
Family Law and the Status of Women
The Races
The Law of Corporations	390	(14)
Corporation Law: Freedoms and Restraints
A Discordant Addendum: The Municipal Corporation
Commerce, Labor, and Taxation	404	(30)
Contract
Negotiable Instruments
The Law of Sales
The Usury Laws
Insurance
Bankruptcy
Admiralty
Labor and Law
Federal Taxation
State and Local Tax
Death Taxes
Crime and Punishment	434	(29)
The Many Faces of Criminal Law
The Statute Law of Crimes
Crime, Crime Rates, Insanity, the Guilty Mind
Punishment and Correction
Victimless Crimes
The Legal Profession: The Training and Literature of Law	463	(20)
The Rise of the Law School
The Literature of the Law
Legal Periodicals and Casebooks
The Legal Profession: At Work	483	(18)
The Nimble Profession
Organization of the Bar
Admission to the Bar
PART IV The Twentieth Century	501	(82)
Leviathan Comes of Age	503	(13)
Center and Periphery
The Growth of the Law	516	(22)
The Liability Explosion: Workers' Compensation
More Explosions: Tort Law
The Constitution, Rights, and Civil Liberties in the Twentieth Century
First Nations
Asian Americans
Hispanics
The Revolt of Otherness
Freedom of Speech
Religion and the Law
Internal Legal Culture in the Twentieth Century: Lawyers, Judges, and Law Books	538	(16)
Legal Ethics
The Organized Bar
Legal Education
Legal Literature
The Twentieth Century Bench
Regulation, Welfare, and the Rise of Environmental Law	554	(13)
Land Use
Environment Law and the Environmental Movement
Intellectual Property
Regulation of Business
Business Law and the Law of Business
Crime and Punishment in the Twentieth Century	567	(9)
Decriminalizing Sex and Vice
Defendants' Rights
The Death Penalty
Crime Waves and the National Response
Family Law in the Twentieth Century	576	(7)
Epilogue A Final Word	583	(2)
Bibliographical Essay	585	(10)
Index	595