Customer Reviews

A History of American Law, Revised Edition (A Touchstone Book)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When Lawrence M. Friedman wrote his landmark "A History of American Law," he remarked that American legal history has been a neglected field. The United States, he noted, has no work of legal history comparable to Holdsworth's monumental "History of English Law." Friedman was right about our neglect of American legal history, and his attempt to remedy that neglect by writing his History remains the most authoritative history of American law. Friedman's History is not only authoritative, however. It is written with clarity and grace, and it is accessible to the general reader. Any attempt to gain a full understanding of American law will necessarily be incomplete without a careful reading of this book. It should be required reading for all law students.

I read this book prior to starting law school. It is the best introduction to the history of American law, and to the law in general. Too many lawyers look at law as a trade, and have no perspective into why or how the law has developed and evolved as it has. This hefty volume goes a long way to remedy that shortcoming. In spite of its academic rigor, it is very readable and clear.

Dr. Friedman's book is really quite brilliantly written. It is easy to identify his argument in each section, and it is very well supported. The book is structured in a way that makes his findings highly memorable, and he draws from a variety of interesting sources. I took his class at Stanford Law School this past semester, and this was part of the required reading - and for good reason!

I studied English Law as part of my degree course in England, but I've always wanted to know more about American law, especially as it looms large in the television dramas we get over here. This book is an accessible read, and gives a helpful perspective on how the law developed. It has many parallels with the books I had to read on English law history all those years ago, so I found the similarities and differences (especially with Californian Law) fascinating.

I read this book whenever I have a spare moment, or need to change my thinking from more dense legal reading (law student)... I find it easy to read and very interesting. A nice supplement.

Though I have some reservations, I give this tome four stars, mainly because I do not want to discourage anyone from buying it, seeming as it does to have no better rival on the market.

But perhaps my criticisms are only petty: for one, I found the author's near-total neglect of the law vis-à-vis Native Americans an egregious oversight; for another, his increasing catankerousness as the book progressed put me off some; also, his occasional facetiousness was, at least for me, disproportionately maddening (e.g., "The blacks, for example, had rudely taken over, with hardly a thank-you, the job of their own liberation" (p. 680)).

So, overall, I'd have to say this book is definitely worth your while. But beware--it is by no means a definitive, comprehensive, or flawless exposition, only a starting point, and occasionally annoying (if generally very well-written) at that.

Industrialists are evil. Juries are misguided simpletons. These are the beliefs that run through Professor Friedman's History of American Law. But fear not, government will save us all.

If you keep in mind his bias, you will find the book a thorough overview of the development of American law.