The Transformation of American Law, 1870-1960: The Crisis of Legal Orthodoxy.

Abstract

When first volume of Morton Horwitz's monumental history of American law appeared in 1977, it was universally acclaimed as one of most significant works ever published in American legal history. The New Republic called it an extremely valuable book. Library Journal praised it as brilliant and convincing. And Eric Foner, in The New York Review of Books, wrote that the issues it raises are indispensable for understanding nineteenth-century It won coveted Bancroft Prize in American History and has since become standard source on American law for period between 1780 and 1860. Now, Horwitz presents The Transformation of American Law, 1870 to 1960, long-awaited sequel that brings his sweeping history to completion. In his pathbreaking first volume, Horwitz showed how economic conflicts helped transform law in antebellum America. Here, Horwitz picks up where he left off, tracing struggle in American law between entrenched legal orthodoxy and Progressive movement, which arose in response to ever-increasing social and economic inequality. Horwitz introduces us to people and events that fuelled this contest between Old Order and New. We sit in on Lochner v. New York in 1905-where new thinkers sought to undermine orthodox claims for autonomy of law-and watch as Progressive thought first crystallized. We meet Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. and recognize influence of his incisive ideas on transformation of law in America. We witness culmination of Progressive challenge to orthodoxy with emergence of Legal Realism in 1920s and '30s, a movement closely allied with other intellectual trends of day. And as postwar events unfold-the rise of totalitarianism abroad, McCarthyism rampant in our own country, astonishingly hostile academic reaction to Brown v. Board of Education-we come to understand that, rather than self-destructing as some historians have asserted, Progressive movement was alive and well and forming roots of legal debates that still confront us today. The Progressive legacy that this volume brings to life is an enduring one, one which continues to speak to us eloquently across nearly a century of American life. In telling its story, Horwitz strikes a balance between a traditional interpretation of history on one hand, and an approach informed by latest historical theory on other. Indeed, Horwitz's rich view of American history-as seen from a variety of perspectives-is undertaken in same spirit as Progressive attacks on an orthodoxy that believed law an objective, neutral entity. The Transformation of American Law is a book certain to revise past thinking on origins and evolution of law in our country. For anyone hoping to understand structure of American law-or of America itself-this volume is indispensable.