Law in America
Subtitle: a short history
By: Lawrence M. Friedman
Edition: Modern Library ed.
Series: A Modern Library chronicles book -- 10; Modern Library chronicles -- 10.
Publisher: Modern Library
Published: 2002
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 207
ISBN-13: 9780375506352
Subjects: Law; Recht; Geschichte; History
Description: From the subject's greatest historian, the story of law in America serves as a powerful instrument for exposing the struggles for power and justice that have shaped this country, from its birth pangs to the present. Throughout American history, laws have been more than dry words in dusty books; they've been a reflection of who we are, what we value, who has power. In The Law in America, Lawrence Friedman makes the law's significance sing. In his hands, the story of law in America serves as a powerful instrument for exposing the struggles for power and justice that have shaped this country, from its birth pangs to the present. Throughout America's history, our laws have been a reflection of who we are, of what we value, of who has control. They embody our society's genetic code. In the masterful hands of the subject's greatest living historian, the story of the evolution of our laws serves to lay bare the deciding struggles over power and justice that have shaped this country from its birth pangs to the present. Law in America is a supreme example of the historian's art, its brevity a testament to the great elegance and wit of its composition.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [185]-192) and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction; title: In the beginning : American law in the colonial period; title: Economy and law in the nineteenth century; title: Family, race, and the law; title: Crime and punishment in the republic; title: The twentieth century and the modern administrative-welfare state; title: American law at the dawn of the twenty-first century.