Americanization of the Common Law: The Impact of Legal Change on Massachusetts Society, 1760-1830Americanization of the Common Law remains one of the standard works on the transformation of law in America from the late colonial period to the end of the early republic. In a straightforward manner, William E. Nelson analyzes the profound ideological movement that grew out of the American Revolution and caused substantial structural change in the legal and social order of Massachusetts and, by extension, in the nation at large. The Revolution, Nelson argues, transformed a hierarchical and communitarian legal and social order into an egalitarian and individualistic one. For this edition, Nelson has written a new preface in which he discusses the book's initial reception and the relevant historiographical issues that have arisen since it was first published in 1975. |
Contents
Law in a Changing Social Order | 1 |
The Legal Restraint of Power | 13 |
The Law of a Civil and Christian State | 36 |
Rules of Unity and Stability | 46 |
The Reform of Common Law Pleading | 69 |
Law as the Guardian of Liberty | 89 |
Common terms and phrases
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