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American Legal History: Cases and Materials
Approaching American legal history from a new perspective, this text employs cases and other legal documents to reveal the law's underlying culture. American Legal History provides a comprehensive selection of the most important documents, which integrate the history of public and private law
from America's colonial origins to the present. It devotes special attention to the interaction of social and legal change, shows how legal ideas developed in tandem with specific historical events, and reveals a rich legal culture unique to America. Introductions and instructive headnotes
accompany each document, tying legal developments to broader historical themes and providing a social and political context essential to an understanding of the history of law in America.
This second edition is fully updated as well as expanded. The authors have revised the sections on the colonial, pre-Civil War, and immediate post-World War II periods, and have added material on the most recent developments in American constitutional and legal history. Special attention is paid to
issues of death and dying, criminal justice, environmentalism, and feminist critique of the law. Offering a thorough examination of both public and private law, American Legal History is essential for students and teachers of constitutional and legal history, the judicial process, and the effects of
law on society.
from America's colonial origins to the present. It devotes special attention to the interaction of social and legal change, shows how legal ideas developed in tandem with specific historical events, and reveals a rich legal culture unique to America. Introductions and instructive headnotes
accompany each document, tying legal developments to broader historical themes and providing a social and political context essential to an understanding of the history of law in America.
This second edition is fully updated as well as expanded. The authors have revised the sections on the colonial, pre-Civil War, and immediate post-World War II periods, and have added material on the most recent developments in American constitutional and legal history. Special attention is paid to
issues of death and dying, criminal justice, environmentalism, and feminist critique of the law. Offering a thorough examination of both public and private law, American Legal History is essential for students and teachers of constitutional and legal history, the judicial process, and the effects of
law on society.
Paperback
First published April 25, 1991
About the author
Kermit L. Hall
61 booksKermit Lance Hall was a noted legal historian who served as president of Utah State University from 2000 to 2005, and president of the at University at Albany from 2005 until his sudden death from a heart attack in 2006.
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Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review
July 29, 2026
American Legal History: Cases and Materials, Kermit L. Hall (1944-2006), Paul Finkelman (1949- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Fi... ), James W. Ely Jr. (1938- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_W.... ), 4th ed. 2011, 713 pages, ISBN 9780195395426, Library-of-Congress KF352.H348.2011 College Library https://search.library.wisc.edu/catal...
Includes arguments, decisions, laws, and events through 2010. Badly in need of updating through the ongoing train wreck of Trump's second term. There is a 5th edition 2017.
NO LIABILITY OF STOCKHOLDERS
In 1813, shareholders of a bank divided 75% of the bank's capital among themselves, leaving too little to pay the bank's debts. A creditor sued a stockholder. The court told the creditor to get lost, stockholders have no liability. The authors have no comment. pp. 179-180.
[Michael Hudson (1939-) explains how pervasive this "legal" theft now is, in this long 2012 article on the Eurozone crisis: https://michael-hudson.com/2012/08/fi... ]
"LAW AND ECONOMICS"
The authors mention "Law and Economics," an ideology to grant maximum latitude to the owning class to do whatever they want, to maximize their wealth. pp. 586, 603. They don't say that it is also a project to train judges. Judges are treated to luxury getaways to attend training sessions in this pro-billionaire ideology. It's having its desired effect.
PATRIOT ACT
Gives G.W. Bush's attorney general John Ashcroft, and Newt Gingrich, 4 pages to praise the 2001 Patriot Act's nullification of Constitutional rights; gives the American Civil Liberties Union less than 2 pages to lament the loss. pp. 673-678.
NEUTRAL?
The authors take no position on the rights and wrongs.
EXCEPT
States as fact that after WWII, U.S. "state and federal governments mushroomed in size, supervising nearly every aspect of the economy." p. 576.
Claims that Reagan-era income- and estate-tax cuts gave "opportunity and growth," then opines that, not detaxing but "international competition made it difficult to sustain the generous benefits of the welfare state." Ignores Reagan's massive increase in the national debt. p. 577.
Opines that a more-empowered president was needed to protect American national security interests. To the contrary, what are called national security interests are instead the interests of the financial and corporate elite. Our political leaders lead us to endless war, endangering us, to let Wall Street plunder the world. p. 638. See Noam Chomsky, /What Uncle Sam Really Wants/, https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Shows the authors' support for the Patriot Act: opines that "maintaining the secrecy of the sources, methods, and results of intelligence is essential to the nation's security." No. Throwing out the Bill of Rights hasn't made us more secure. Claims a naive belief that G.W. Bush and crew held a doctrinaire allegiance to individual liberty and a changeless Constitution. In fact, their only allegiance has ever been to increasing the power and wealth of the corporate and financial elite. The rhetoric was only ever smoke. p. 662.
The authors opine that the Homeland Security Act reorganized the federal bureaucracy into a "more logical arangement." p. 681.
ERRATA
Shows Rehnquist as chief justice "1986-." p. 578. He died 2005; this is the 2011 4th edition.
"No two people have the same DNA." p. 566. Identical twins do.
Includes arguments, decisions, laws, and events through 2010. Badly in need of updating through the ongoing train wreck of Trump's second term. There is a 5th edition 2017.
NO LIABILITY OF STOCKHOLDERS
In 1813, shareholders of a bank divided 75% of the bank's capital among themselves, leaving too little to pay the bank's debts. A creditor sued a stockholder. The court told the creditor to get lost, stockholders have no liability. The authors have no comment. pp. 179-180.
[Michael Hudson (1939-) explains how pervasive this "legal" theft now is, in this long 2012 article on the Eurozone crisis: https://michael-hudson.com/2012/08/fi... ]
"LAW AND ECONOMICS"
The authors mention "Law and Economics," an ideology to grant maximum latitude to the owning class to do whatever they want, to maximize their wealth. pp. 586, 603. They don't say that it is also a project to train judges. Judges are treated to luxury getaways to attend training sessions in this pro-billionaire ideology. It's having its desired effect.
PATRIOT ACT
Gives G.W. Bush's attorney general John Ashcroft, and Newt Gingrich, 4 pages to praise the 2001 Patriot Act's nullification of Constitutional rights; gives the American Civil Liberties Union less than 2 pages to lament the loss. pp. 673-678.
NEUTRAL?
The authors take no position on the rights and wrongs.
EXCEPT
States as fact that after WWII, U.S. "state and federal governments mushroomed in size, supervising nearly every aspect of the economy." p. 576.
Claims that Reagan-era income- and estate-tax cuts gave "opportunity and growth," then opines that, not detaxing but "international competition made it difficult to sustain the generous benefits of the welfare state." Ignores Reagan's massive increase in the national debt. p. 577.
Opines that a more-empowered president was needed to protect American national security interests. To the contrary, what are called national security interests are instead the interests of the financial and corporate elite. Our political leaders lead us to endless war, endangering us, to let Wall Street plunder the world. p. 638. See Noam Chomsky, /What Uncle Sam Really Wants/, https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Shows the authors' support for the Patriot Act: opines that "maintaining the secrecy of the sources, methods, and results of intelligence is essential to the nation's security." No. Throwing out the Bill of Rights hasn't made us more secure. Claims a naive belief that G.W. Bush and crew held a doctrinaire allegiance to individual liberty and a changeless Constitution. In fact, their only allegiance has ever been to increasing the power and wealth of the corporate and financial elite. The rhetoric was only ever smoke. p. 662.
The authors opine that the Homeland Security Act reorganized the federal bureaucracy into a "more logical arangement." p. 681.
ERRATA
Shows Rehnquist as chief justice "1986-." p. 578. He died 2005; this is the 2011 4th edition.
"No two people have the same DNA." p. 566. Identical twins do.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review