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The Cambridge History of Law in America: Volume 3, The Twentieth Century and After (1920–)

  • Publication: Cambridge University Press
  • Research area: Legal history

2008, Christopher L. Tomlins, Cambridge University Press

Cover of The Cambridge History of Law in America: Volume 3, The Twentieth Century and After (1920–)

(eds. with Michael Grossberg) Cambridge University Press: New York, NY; 2008.

Law stands at the center of modern American life. Since the 1950s, American historians have produced an extraordinarily rich and diverse account of law and legal institutions in American history. But even though our knowledge has increased enormously, few attempts have been made to draw its many parts together in a summary and synthesis of the history of law in America.

The Cambridge History of Law in America has been designed for just this purpose. Sixty of the leading historians of law in the United States have been brought together in one enterprise to present the most comprehensive and authoritative account possible of the history of American law. The Cambridge History of Law in America has been made possible by the generous support of the American Bar Foundation.

Volume III of the Cambridge History of Law in America covers the period from 1920 to the present, ‘the American Century’. It charts a century of legal transformations - in the state, in legal thought and education, in professional organization and life, in American federalism and governance, in domestic affairs and international relations. It shows how, politically, socially and culturally, the twentieth century was when law became ubiquitous in American life. Among the themes discussed are innovation in the disciplinary and regulatory use of law, changes wrought by the intersection of law with explosive struggles around race, gender, class and sexuality, the emergence and development of the particularly American legal discourse of ‘rights’, and the expansion of this discourse to the international arena. The main focus of this last volume of the Cambridge History of Law in America is the accelerating pace of change, change which we can be confident will continue.