Americanization of the Common Law: The Impact of Legal Change on Massachusetts Society, 1760-1830

Studies in Legal History

by William Edward Nelson

Americanization of the Common Law remains one of the standard works on the transformation of law in America from the late colonial period to the end of the early republic. In a straightforward manner, William E. Nelson analyzes the profound ideological movement that grew out of the American Revolution and caused substantial structural change in the legal and social order of Massachusetts and, by extension, in the nation at large. The Revolution, Nelson argues, transformed a hierarchical and communitarian legal and social order into an egalitarian and individualistic one.

For this edition, Nelson has written a new preface in which he discusses the book's initial reception and the relevant historiographical issues that have arisen since it was first published in 1975.

304 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1975

Reviews

[Roger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book. Nelson mentions New York and Virginia in the 1994 Preface, which made me wish this went beyond just Massachusetts. But, as he points out, “the extant literature is not sufficient to elaborate detailed hypotheses about legal development in each of the seventeenth-century colonies.” Fine by me.

[Constance McCutcheon]

Excellent study.