Americanization of the Common Law

The Impact of Legal Change on Massachusetts Society, 1760-1830

Title Details

Pages: 304

Trim size: 6.120in x 9.250in

Formats

Paperback

Pub Date: 02/01/1994

ISBN: 9-780-8203-1587-4

List Price: $34.95

Related Subjects

LAW / Legal History

Americanization of the Common Law

The Impact of Legal Change on Massachusetts Society, 1760-1830

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  • Description

Americanization of the Common Law remains one of the standard works on the transformation of law in America from the late colonial period to the end of the early republic. In a straightforward manner, William E. Nelson analyzes the profound ideological movement that grew out of the American Revolution and caused substantial structural change in the legal and social order of Massachusetts and, by extension, in the nation at large. The Revolution, Nelson argues, transformed a hierarchical and communitarian legal and social order into an egalitarian and individualistic one.

For this edition, Nelson has written a new preface in which he discusses the book's initial reception and the relevant historiographical issues that have arisen since it was first published in 1975.

About the Author/Editor

WILLIAM E. NELSON is a professor of law at New York University. His book The Fourteenth Amendment: From Political Principle to Judicial Doctrine won the Littleton-Griswold Prize of the American Historical Association.