Law, Labor, and Ideology in the Early American Republic

by Christopher L. Tomlins

Law, Labor, and Ideology in the Early American Republic is a fundamental reinterpretation of law and politics in America between 1790 and 1850, the crucial period of the Republic's early growth and its movement toward industrialism. The book is the most detailed study yet available of the intellectual and institutional processes that created the foundation categories framing all the basic legal relationships involving working people at work. But it also brings out the political and social significance of those categories, and of law's role in their creation. Tomlins argues that it is impossible to understand outcomes in the interaction between law and labor during the early Republic unless one also understands the preeminence that legal discourse was assuming at the time in American society as a whole, and the particular social and political reasons for that preeminence. Because of the breadth and novelty of its interpretation this is a book not just for those interested in the history of law or the history of labor, but for anyone interested in the broad stream of American political and social history.

Genres: History, The United States Of America, Law

428 pages, Paperback

First published April 30, 1993

Reviews

[Ian Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tomlins read Marx and Foucault without losing his head--absolutely brilliant

[Oliver Bateman · Rating 3 out of 5]

A cogent but perhaps overstated argument about the nature of legal changes during the period 1780-1860 that occurred to the detriment of laborers. A member of the critical legal studies camp, Tomlins relies heavily on postmodern theory and close readings of a few key sources, but his book isn't as thoroughly researched as Novak's The People's Welfare (and it shows--huge, difficult-to-extrapolate conclusions are drawn from analyses of one or two major state court decisions). Despite its author's theoretical bent, the book's narrative is surprisingly clear and accessible.

[Caeser Pink · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not an easy read if you are not a lawyer, but is provides a good introduction to the fundamental concepts facing labor organizations in the legal system.