The Magic Mirror Law in American History

by Hall, Kermit L.; Karsten, Peter

• ISBN13: 9780195081800
• ISBN10: 0195081803
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-05-16
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Weaving together themes from the history of public, private, and constitutional law, The Magic Mirror: Law in American History, Second Edition, recounts the roles that law--in all its many shapes and forms--has played in American history, from the days of the earliest English settlements in North America to the year 2007. It also provides comprehensive treatment of twentieth-century developments and sets American law and legal institutions in the broad context of social, cultural, economic, and political events. The Magic Mirror begins by discussing the ways that the settlers dealt with one another and with the indigenous populations; it examines municipal ordinances; colonial, state, and federal statutes; administrative agencies; and court decisions. It goes on to relate the ways that property, crime, sale and labor contracts, commercial transactions, accidents, domestic relations, wills, trusts, and corporations were handled by police, attorneys, legislatures, and jurists over the centuries. The text also pays close attention to the evolution of substantive law categories-including contracts, torts, negotiable instruments, real property, trusts and estates, and civil procedure-and addresses the intellectual evolution of American law, including sociological jurisprudence, legal realism, critical legal studies, Law & Society, Law & Anthropology, and Law & Economics schools of analysis and thought. Featuring extensive updates by new author Peter Karsten, The Magic Mirror is ideal for courses in American Legal History.

Author Biography

The late Kermit L Hall was President of SUNY Albany.
Peter Karsten is Professor of History and Sociology at the University of Pittsburgh.

Table of Contents

Preface to the Second Edition	p. ix
Preface to the First Edition	p. xi
Introduction	p. 1
Social and Institutional Foundations of Early American Law	p. 7
Law, Society, and Economy in Colonial America	p. 28
The Law in Revolution and Revolution in the Law	p. 51
Law, Politics, and the Rise of the American Legal System	p. 70
The Active State and the Mixed Economy: 1789-1861	p. 92
Common Law, Jurists, and American Values: Continuity and Change, 1780-1880	p. 113
Race and the Nineteenth-Century Law of Personal Status	p. 142
The Nineteenth-Century Law of Domestic Relations	p. 168
The Dangerous Classes and the Nineteenth-Century Criminal Justice System	p. 187
Law, Industrialization, and the Beginnings of the Regulatory State: 1860-1920	p. 208
The Professionalization of the Legal Culture: Bench and Bar, 1860-1920	p. 231
The Judicial Response to Industrialization: 1860-1920	p. 247
Cultural Pluralism, Total War, and the Formation of Modern Legal Culture: 1917-1945	p. 268
The Great Depression and the Emergence of Liberal Legal Culture	p. 290
Law and Society in the Cold War Years, 1946-1990	p. 310
The Imperial Judiciary and Contemporary Social and Cultural Change	p. 341
Epilogue: More Like a River than a Rock	p. 379
Notes	p. 384
Glossary	p. 415
Bibliographical Essay	p. 419
Table of Cases	p. 437
Index	p. 445
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