In the first of the three volumes of his projected comprehensive
narrative history of the role of law in America from the colonial years
through the twentieth century, G. Edward White takes up the central
themes of American legal history from the earliest European settlements
through the Civil War.
Included in the coverage of this volume are the interactions between
European and Amerindian legal systems in the years of colonial
settlement; the crucial role of Anglo-American theories of sovereignty
and imperial governance in facilitating the separation of the American
colonies from the British Empire in the late eighteenth century; the
American "experiment" with federated republican constitutionalism in the
founding period; the major importance of agricultural householding, in
the form of slave plantations as well as farms featuring wage labor, in
helping to shape the development of American law in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries; the emergence of the Supreme Court of the United
States as an authoritative force in American law and politics in the
early nineteenth century; the interactions between law, westward
expansion, and transformative developments in transportation and
communication in the antebellum years; the contributions of American
legal institutions to the dissolution of the Union of American states in
the three decades after 1830; and the often-overlooked legal history of
the Confederacy and Union governments during the Civil War.
White incorporates recent scholarship in anthropology, ethnography, and
economic, political, intellectual and legal history to produce a
narrative that is both revisionist and accessible, taking up the
familiar topics of race, gender, slavery, and the treatment of native
Americans from fresh perspectives. Along the way he provides a
compelling case for why law can be seen as the key to understanding the
development of American life as we know it. Law in American History,
Volume 1 will be an essential text for both students of law and general
readers.
