English Legal History

Fights over history are at the heart of most important constitutional disputes in America. The Supreme Court's current embrace of originalism is only the most recent example of how lawyers and judges try to use history to establish authority for their positions. Jack M. Balkin argues that fights over constitutional interpretation are often fights over collective memory. Balkin shows how lawyers and judges channel history through standard forms of legal argument that shape how they use history and even what they see in history.

Nothing had prepared her for the hostility of a city gripped by prejudice . . . With her first trial a dramatic success, Kit Shannon steps out from the protective and guiding hand of her mentor and begins her own law practice. When she is drawn to the defense of a man accused of a crime that crosses racial lines, Kit is unprepared for the prejudice and hatred that is hurled in her direction. A loyal supporter of the law, Kit struggles with the secret role of the very officers who claim to represent justice. When a new suitor enters her life, Kit finds her heart longing to embrace the love ...

A Barnes & Noble Best History Book of 2025 Four men in a lifeboat. Two weeks without food. One impossible choice that would reshape the boundaries between survival and murder. “A perfect enunciation of the classic philosophical conundrum: can you sacrifice one innocent life to save many?"...

New Orleans - 1855 New Orleans beckoned to her, a place that held no memories, but yet it had a siren's call. She'd been taken far away, to Oregon, as a infant. Here she was, after a life of poverty, cruelty and hardship, back to where she'd been born, hoping that her kin would take her in. The grand house stood before her, in stark contrast to everything she'd ever experienced. Her past made her run away, from the tragic memories left on that lonely mountain. Why had her mother never told her about her opulent childhood? Her mother's few letters had led her to this place. Could she trust ...

This is the first volume of distinguished historian Dumas Malone's Pulitzer Prize-winning six-volume work on the life and times of Thomas Jefferson. Based on a myriad of sources, it covers Jefferson's ancestry, youth, education, and legal career; his marriage and the building of Monticello; the drafting of the Declaration of Independence and the Notes on Virginia; his rich, fruitful legislative career; his highly controversial governorship; and his early services to the development of the West.

A myth-busting glimpse into the inner workings of the Supreme Court, revealing what we get wrong about the “Roberts era,” what the justices' clerks gossip about, and how to fix a court in crisis—from the popular ABC news pundit and top legal podcaster Most people get the Supreme Court all...

For many years, Britain tried to impose its own laws on the peoples it conquered, and English common law usually followed the Union Jack. But the common law became less common after Britain emerged from the Seven Years' War as the world's most powerful empire. At that point, imperial policymakers adopted a strategy of legal pluralism: some colonies remained under English law, while others retained much of their previous legal regimes.

The first-ever biography of the most pivotal Justice on the Supreme Court whose decisions, like the overturning of Roe, will drive the reshaping of America, by prize-winning journalist Peter Canellos. When the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson, the landmark case...

Even though he escaped the gas chambers, he was never truly free. In occupied Poland, there are whispers of a terrifying darkness in the northern forests. When a young Lodzi Ashstein learns the horrifying truth about the Treblinka extermination camp, he is kidnapped and tormented by a senior SS officer, Janich Heiss. After a prisoner uprising, Heiss disappears into the woods and Lodzi is left with nothing but his nightmares and the eternal scars of a survivor. More than 70 years later, Heiss has been mysteriously murdered, and Lodzi is accused of a crime of revenge. When attorney Thaddeus ...

What do the thoughts of a ravenous tiger have to do with the evolution of America's legal system? How do the works of Jane Austen and Ludwig van Beethoven relate to corporal punishment? In The Law of the Land, Charles Rembar examines these and many other topics, illustrating the surprisingly entertaining history of US law.

Margaret A. Burnham challenges our understanding of the Jim Crow era by exploring the relationship between formal law and background legal norms in harrowing cases between 1920 and 1960. From rendition, the legal process by which states make claims to other states for the return of their citizens, to battles over state and federal jurisdiction and the outsize role of local sheriffs in enforcing racial hierarchy, Burnham maps the criminal legal system of the mid-twentieth-century South, and traces the line from slavery to the legal structures of this period—and through to today.

He was written off. Impeached twice. Indicted multiple times. Defeated in 2020. Yet, on November 5, 2024, Donald J. Trump achieved the unthinkable – a political comeback of historic proportions, reclaiming the White House against staggering odds. Donald Trump the comeback of the 47th President is the definitive account of one of the most extraordinary journeys in American political history. Following his tumultuous exit from office and facing an unprecedented barrage of legal challenges and establishment opposition, Trump refused to fade away. This book chronicles the meticulous, often ...

Law has played a central role in American history. From colonial times to the present, law has not just reflected the changing society in which legal decisions have been made - it has played a powerful role in shaping that society, though not always in positive ways. Eminent legal scholar G. Edward White offers a compact overview that sheds light on the impact of law on a number of key social issues.

Will abortion be legal? Should people of the same sex be allowed to marry? May colleges prefer black applicants over white ones? These are among the most bitterly contested issues in the United States today. We answer these questions, and many more, by presenting them to nine lawyers—the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. No other nation commits so many important questions to its highest court. Stuart Banner’s The Most Powerful Court in the World is an authoritative history of the United States Supreme Court from the Founding era to the present.

“The Bible and the Constitution: Exploring the Judeo-Christian Roots of American Law.” Discover the Deep Connection Between Faith and Law in the Birth of the United States! Product Description In a divisive world where faith and politics often clash, understanding the interwoven relationship between Christianity and American law can help bridge the gap. “The Bible and the Constitution” is a comprehensive 9,000-word guide that meticulously explores the Judeo-Christian influences that have shaped American legal and political systems. What This eBook Offers: Chapter 1: Understanding ...

Sometimes, you’re damned if you do and damned if you don't. Such is the position in which Associate Supreme Court Justice Katherine Helena Ross, the first black female on the U.S. Supreme Court, finds herself in The Fifth Letter, the new political thriller by author Vivian Carpenter. Rooted in the historical treatment of Blacks in the United States, Justice Katherine Ross struggles to do what is right as her mother’s 1940s memoir influences her actions and emotions. Once on the Court, Katherine gains the power to ignite an involuntary retirement process to remove conservative Justice ...

BRITISH LEGAL HISTORY - The Fielding Brothers & Bow Street Runners - the early days and beginnings of policing in England with the infamous Fielding Brothers, the early Bow Street Runners, Robert Peel, Jerome Caminada, and other brutal crime fighters, covering highway robberies, gruesome murders, street crime and a host of dangerous attacks on society. A fascinating slice of legal history and nostalgia, featuring Victorian & Edwardian Manchester crime.

Law and Authority: Understanding the Core Principles and Legacy of Legal Positivism offers a clear and accessible exploration of one of the most influential theories in jurisprudence. From Thomas Hobbes’s vision of the sovereign’s command to H. L. A. Hart’s groundbreaking rule of recognition, this book traces the development of legal positivism and explains why it continues to shape modern legal systems. Designed for students, scholars, and curious readers alike, it provides both the historical context and the philosophical debates that define the positivist tradition. Inside, ...

"Hamilton's novel centers on a fascinating, little-known figure from history - Elisabeth Samson emerges as intriguing and distinctive. An intriguing fictionalization of circumstances with an ample romantic angle. Hamilton's prose style is warm, even, and voice-driven." - The BookLife Prize In the 18th century Dutch plantation colony of Suriname, where wealth is measured by the number of slaves one owns, the educated Free Negress Elisabeth Samson, owner of several flourishing coffee plantations, desires the one thing her wealth cannot buy: a legal marriage with her consort, a White colonial ...

This "crucial" (The Advocate) and "compelling" (BuzzFeed) history of a prison, and the queer women and trans people held there, is a window into the policing of queerness and radical politics in the twentieth century. The Women’s House of Detention, a landmark that ushered in the modern era...