First review written more like the words i wish i could write, providing too much school and being taught lesser is what i got out of the faulty structure. forgot what i was going to typewr. -we

I had to treat this book like a text book. Read a little here and there. Thoroughly researched, it provides the reader with a detailed history of American law. This book is a keeper.

I had to treat this book like a text book. Read a little here and there. Thoroughly researched, it provides the reader with a detailed history of American law. This book is a keeper.

My first reaction after finishing the book, was to ask myself how anyone could have enough time to put so much information together. As the cover states, this "book touches every conceivable aspect of law...it is a stupendous achievement." The author takes an insurmountable task and first breaks it up into four sections, Part 1: American Law in the colonial Period, Part 2: Revolution to the Middle of the 19th century, Part 3: Close of the 19th century, Part 4: The 20th century. Within each part he segments chapters into readable legal topics. (i.e. Corporations, Crime and Punishment, etc). In that way, the reader gets an understanding of the period and how it effects all sorts of law, before going onto another time period and seeing how other areas of the law grew and affected other areas.

Although the republic split from England, the author reviews how attached the our legal system continued to be and all the reasons why this was so. (All the legal treatises and cases were only printed about English law for quite some time). He also discusses why certain areas of the law, nonetheless, quickly grew away. (i.e. the are lots of navigable seaways in America, not so many in England). This is just a small sampling of a tremendous source of information.

The study of law present a tremendous number of apparent inconsistencies, non-sequitors, and just beyond the reasonable conundrums. The author tremendous dedication to this work really sorts out these issues buy showing the development and goals through the history of the Union. (And why the Socratic method is everywhere, much to the consternations of L1s everywhere)

Of course such a treaties requires a good effort to read, assimilate, and remember. Should you decide to read it in a bar on say, a lunch break, you get lots of curious questions, puzzled looks, and few invitations to dates, so be warned. Nonetheless, highly recommended for the all the people in this country that are interested in US history and legal history; yes, I recommend it to both of us.

If this edition is at all like the 2nd edition (what I am inferring from) then it will be a very readable history of American law up to 1900. It's something of a social history given the wealth of information on how law affected the family, the early commerce of the Republic, and industrial growth (and suffering it caused, see the chapter on torts). It is something of a social history. The early chapters on colonial law are a bit tough but are worth comparing to the changes that would follow. If you're at all interested in the law and how U.S. society evolved (and did harm, at times) this book and its sequel, American Law in the 20th Century, is very much worthwhile.