This Reading Group will meet two hours every other week to discuss the professor's book manuscript, entitled "Law's History: American Legal Thought and the Transatlantic Turn to History." The book places the turn to history in American legal thought following the Civil War in the broader context of the prevalence of historical explanation, in law and in other disciplines, in Europe and in the United States. This historical orientation challenges conventional accounts that emphasize "deductive formalism" and political conservatism as the main features of "classical legal thought" during the late nineteenth century. Because many of the American legal scholars covered in the book wrote about the early history of English law, this Reading Group should appeal to students interested in English legal history as well as in American legal history and the history of legal thought. By reading a late draft of a manuscript that is being revised into a published book, the Reading Group should also appeal to students interested in the process of legal scholarship. Most of the course readings will consist of the book manuscript, though some primary and secondary sources discussed in the manuscript might also be assigned. Students will write several very short one to three page essays during the semester. Grading will be pass/fail.
Rabban, David M.