Customer Reviews

The Canon of American Legal Thought

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Nice to have all the texts together in one place, but errors have been injected throughout. A footnote to Ihering, "Geist des roemischen Rechts," becomes "romsichen Recht"; a quote from Ronald Dworkin, with the note from Robert Cover "emphasis in original," has the emphasis left out (it was the word "meaning"). In other words, the editors have taken texts almost entirely available on Westlaw and had them retyped with many errors. Wait for the second edition, or at least don't touch the hardcover.

The selections from the book cover a diverse array of legal arguments, but which somehow ultimately exhibit what we might see as a shared sensibility about thinking law in American thought. The essays introducing the authors, however, are what set this book apart from other attempts in the field, and could almost function as their own original work of legal analysis/scholarship. A very important read for anyone interested in 20th century American jurisprudence, and on a personal level, re-awakened my interest in the American Legal Realists as important contemporary voices for law today. Definitely worth checking out if a law student or interested in American legal history.

This book offers an excellent compilation of American Legal theory. A greatest hits of sorts. Recommended.