Common law, history, and democracy in America, 1790-1900 : legal thought before modernism / Kunal M. Parker.
2011
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Details
Title
Common law, history, and democracy in America, 1790-1900 : legal thought before modernism / Kunal M. Parker.
Imprint
Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2011.
Description
1 online resource (xi, 305 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).
Series
Cambridge historical studies in American law and society.
Formatted Contents Note
The creation of times: custom and history in the British background
Time as consent: common law thought after the American Revolution
Time as spirit: common law thought in the early nineteenth century
Time as law: common law thought in the mid-nineteenth century
Time as life: common law thought in the late nineteenth century.
Time as consent: common law thought after the American Revolution
Time as spirit: common law thought in the early nineteenth century
Time as law: common law thought in the mid-nineteenth century
Time as life: common law thought in the late nineteenth century.
Summary
This book argues for a change in our understanding of the relationships among law, politics and history. Since the turn of the nineteenth century, a certain anti-foundational conception of history has served to undermine law's foundations, such that we tend to think of law as nothing other than a species of politics. Thus viewed, the activity of unelected, common law judges appears to be an encroachment on the space of democracy. However, Kunal M. Parker shows that the world of the nineteenth century looked rather different. Democracy was itself constrained by a sense that history possessed a logic, meaning and direction that democracy could not contravene. In such a world, far from law being seen in opposition to democracy, it was possible to argue that law - specifically, the common law - did a better job than democracy of guiding America along history's path.
Note
Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).
Location
WWW
Available in Other Form
Print version:
Linked Resources
Course Lists
Law & History Foundation Seminar by Tomlins (SPRING 2021)
Alternate Title
Cambridge Core.
Language
English
ISBN
9780511973963 ebook
9780521519953 (hardback)
9781107614352 (paperback)
9780521519953 (hardback)
9781107614352 (paperback)
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