The Magic Mirror: Law in American History

by Kermit L. Hall, Peter Karsten

Weaving together themes from the history of public, private, and constitutional law, The Magic Law in American History, Second Edition, recounts the roles that law--in all its many shapes and forms--has played in American history, from the days of the earliest English settlements in North America to the year 2007. It also provides comprehensive treatment of twentieth-century developments and sets American law and legal institutions in the broad context of social, cultural, economic, and political events.

The Magic Mirror begins by discussing the ways that the settlers dealt with one another and with the indigenous populations; it examines municipal ordinances; colonial, state, and federal statutes; administrative agencies; and court decisions. It goes on to relate the ways that property, crime, sale and labor contracts, commercial transactions, accidents, domestic relations, wills, trusts, and corporations were handled by police, attorneys, legislatures, and jurists over the centuries. The text also pays close attention to the evolution of substantive law categories-including contracts, torts, negotiable instruments, real property, trusts and estates, and civil procedure-and addresses the intellectual evolution of American law, including sociological jurisprudence, legal realism, critical legal studies, Law & Society, Law & Anthropology, and Law & Economics schools of analysis and thought.

Featuring extensive updates by new author Peter Karsten, The Magic Mirror is ideal for courses in American Legal History.

Genres: Law, History, Nonfiction

480 pages, Hardcover

First published February 9, 1989

About the author

Kermit Lance Hall was a noted legal historian who served as president of Utah State University from 2000 to 2005, and president of the at University at Albany from 2005 until his sudden death from a heart attack in 2006.

Reviews

[Matthew Rohn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Always kind of weird to review what's basically a textbook. This covers a very wide sweep of American legal history very efficiently. This book is at its strongest in explaining the development of the legal profession and training in the U.S. and in providing an overview of the transition from English common law to a new legal system in the North American colonies and eventual United States. It's at its weakest when discussing the American South and race law after the Civil War and 20th century immigration law where a fairly open conservative and institutionalist bias leads to the omission of important material

[Oliver Bateman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Almost too fact-filled to be useful. A better reference than an introductory text, although it's marketed as the latter.

[Bender · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sint nisi nobis et autem. Rerum iste aspernatur eveniet. Ut eveniet id sed error. Rerum ut delectus ducimus quaerat. Nesciunt eaque quis quia qui natus.

[Toby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Text book suff!