Common Law, History, and Democracy in America, 1790-1900: Legal Thought Before Modernism (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781107614352)

This book argues for a change in our understanding of the relationships among law, politics, and history. Since the turn of the nineteenth century, a certain anti-foundational conception of history has served to undermine law's foundations, such that we tend to think of law as nothing other than a species of politics. Thus viewed, the activity of unelected, common law judges appears to be an encroachment on the space of democracy. However, Kunal M. Parker shows that the world of the nineteenth century looked rather different. Democracy was itself constrained by a sense that history possessed a logic, meaning, and direction that democracy could not contravene. In such a world, far from law being seen in opposition to democracy, it was possible to argue that law - specifically, the common law - did a better job than democracy of guiding America along history's path.

Author: Kunal M. Parker
ISBN-10: 110761435X
ISBN-13: 9781107614352
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 07/11/2013
Pages: 318
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.03lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.71d