Academic

Transformations In American Legal History

By propertyprof

It's my great pleasure to announce that Transformations in American Legal History: Essays in Honor of Professor Morton J. Horwitzhas been printed  (even though it's not being shipped until February 9).  The volume, which Dan Hamilton and I edited, has essays by nineteen of Horwitz' students and colleagues.

Horwitz' first book, The Transformation of American Law, 1780-1860 (1977) said a lot about the relationship of law to the economy; his second, The Transformation of American Law, 1870-1960 (1992) focused on jurisprudence.  So not surprisingly a lot of the essays relate to one of those broad areas (more to the latter than the former).   Yet, Transformations in American Legal Historyis somewhat different from the usual festschrift volume because a lot of the essays go in different directions from Horwitz' work.  Why is that?  I think that's characteristic of the freedom that Horwitz gives his students, to pursue topics that interest them, rather than only those on which he is most interested.

This also means that, like most edited volumes, the essays do not always directly relate to one another.  So we have essays on legal practice in the eighteenth century, on James Kent's jurisprudence, on the place of American law in British empire, on legal practice in the gilded age, labor policy during the New Deal, legal pluralism during the New Deal era, Justice Black's ideas of civil rights, the future of legal history as a discipline, even two on intellectual property that take the story right up to the day before yesterday--along with a very affectionate foreword by Dean Elena Kagan.

The book review editor in me wonders, what does this tell us about the state of legal history?  At a pretty obvious level, the diversity of topics suggests just how broad legal history is as a field these days: we're interested in all sorts of topics, from legal practice, to constitutionalism, to jurisprudence.  The legal history of just about every substantive area is under examination and I think that's because we think there's good reason to explore those histories.  First, that may tell us more about where we are today; second, it may expand our knowledge of legal evolution and the interaction of legal and cultural ideas.

The impressionistic picture the volume creates of the field is likely more important than the connections between individual essays; for that picture suggests that the field is--like our country--very broad.  There continues to be a lot of attention to the Constitution, particularly the early federal Constitution.  There are, of course, some really interesting questions about what's not in here.  There is little on the American Revolution or Civil War.  Issues of gender are noticeable by their absence.  That has bee a common cause of concern of mine for the field of legal history, though the second festchrift volume will address this, in part with an important essay by Felice Batlan.   And one thing that's surprising to me is the lack of emphasis on critical legal studies.  Horwitz' students' interests have gone in rather different directions, as have his own in recent years, of course.  (I had a few thoughts on my relationship with Horwitz' work and with him back in September, around the time of the conference in his honor.)

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on January 01, 2009 (boomark / email).