Legal History Seminar

Traces the history of racial discrimination in American law from colonial times to the present, analyzing the key court cases that established America's racial system and showing their impact on American society.

The Long, Lingering Shadow utilizes a comparative perspective to look at the parallel legal histories of race relations in the United States, Brazil, and Spanish America.

A comprehensive history of the evolving relationship between American slavery and the law from colonial times to the Civil War.

In the Spanish, Portuguese, French, and English empires in the Americas, individuals and groups turned to courts of law to define and implement various types of status for indigenous Americans, forcibly imported Africans, and colonizing Europeans - and their progeny. Peabody and Grinberg introduce the voices of slaves, slave-holders, jurists, legislators, and others, as they struggle to critique, overturn, justify, or simply describe the social order in which they are embedded.

Captures the thematic breadth of Native American history over the last forty years. Twenty-five original essays by leading scholars in the field, both American Indian and non-American Indian, bring a modern perspective to Native American histories that were at one time related exclusively by Euro-American settlers.

What influences decisions of the US Supreme Court? For decades social scientists focused on the ideology of individual justices. This text moves beyond that focus by exploring how justices are influenced by the distinctive features of courts as institutions and their place in the political system.

Offers lively and insightful accounts of the most important cases ever argued before the Court, from Marbury v. Madison and Scott v. Sandford (the Dred Scott decision) to Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade. The Guide contains more than 450 entries on major Supreme Court cases.

The Supreme Court has indeed traveled a long and interesting journey to its current preeminent place in American life. In A History of the Supreme Court, Schwartz provides a comprehensive one-volume narrative of our highest court.
Ebook also available

In this revised third edition of a classic in American jurisprudence, G. Edward White updates his series of portraits of the most famous appellate judges in American history from John Marshall to Oliver W. Holmes to Warren E. Burger, with a new chapter on the Rehnquist Court.

This unique study offers a comprehensive analysis of American jurisprudence from its emergence in the later stages of the nineteenth century to the present day. The author argues that it is a mistake to view American jurisprudence as a collection of movements and schools which have emerged in opposition to each other. By offering a highly original analysis of legal formalism, legal realism, policy science, process jurisprudence, law and economics, and critical legal studies, he demonstrates that American jurisprudence has evolved as a collection of themes which reflect broader American intellectual and cultural concerns.

This volume includes essays and historiographical surveys of American foreign relations since 1941. The essays in part one offer sweeping overviews of the major trends in the field of diplomatic history. Part two features essays that survey the literature on US relations with particular regions of the world or on the foreign policies of presidential administrations.

In a panoramic history of our criminal justice system from Colonial times to today, this text shows how America fashioned a system of crime and punishment in its own image.

In this volume distinguished historians and political scientists examine political discourse during that short span of years from the Revolution through ratification, a period of profound political and conceptual change. The concepts of "sovereignty," "representation," "liberty," "virtue," "republic," "democracy" even "constitution" itself were virtually recoined. Others, like "federalism," were new inventions. Out of the vehement political arguments and debates of the period came not only a new Constitution but a new political vocabulary; a political idiom that was distinctly recognizably American.

The Routledge Handbook of Constitutional Law is an advanced level reference work which surveys the current state of constitutional law. Featuring new, specially commissioned papers by a range of leading scholars from around the world, it offers a comprehensive overview of the field as well as identifying promising avenues for future research. The book presents the key issues in constitutional law thematically allowing for a truly comparative approach to the subject. It also pays particular attention to constitutional design, identifying and evaluating various solutions to the challenges involved in constitutional architecture. The book is split into four parts for ease of reference: Part One: General issues "sets issues of constitutional law firmly in context including topics such as the making of constitutions, the impact of religion and culture on constitutions, and the relationship between international law and domestic constitutions. Part Two: Structures presents different approaches in regard to institutions or state organization and structural concepts such as emergency powers and electoral systems Part Three: Rights covers the key rights often enshrined in constitutions Part Four: New Challenges - explores issues of importance such as migration and refugees, sovereignty under pressure from globalization, Supranational Organizations and their role in creating post-conflict constitutions, and new technological challenges. Providing up-to-date and authoritative articles covering all the key aspects of constitutional law, this reference work is essential reading for advanced students, scholars and practitioners in the field.