Inventing American Exceptionalism: The Origins of American Adversarial Legal Culture, 1800-1877 Yale Law Library Series in Legal History and Reference

Compare Textbook Prices for Inventing American Exceptionalism: The Origins of American Adversarial Legal Culture, 1800-1877 Yale Law Library Series in Legal History and Reference  ISBN 9780300222258 by Kessler, Amalia D.
Author: Kessler, Amalia D.
ISBN:0300222254
ISBN-13: 9780300222258
List Price: $9.90 (up to 23% savings)
Prices shown are the lowest from
the top textbook retailers.

View all Prices by Retailer

Details about Inventing American Exceptionalism: The Origins of American Adversarial Legal Culture, 1800-1877 Yale Law Library Series in Legal History and Reference:

A highly engaging account of the developments—not only legal, but also socioeconomic, political, and cultural—that gave rise to Americans’ distinctively lawyer-driven legal culture

When Americans imagine their legal system, it is the adversarial trial—dominated by dueling larger-than-life lawyers undertaking grand public performances—that first comes to mind. But as award-winning author Amalia Kessler reveals in this engrossing history, it was only in the turbulent decades before the Civil War that adversarialism became a defining American practice and ideology, displacing alternative, more judge-driven approaches to procedure. By drawing on a broad range of methods and sources—and by recovering neglected influences (including from Europe)—the author shows how the emergence of the American adversarial legal culture was a product not only of developments internal to law, but also of wider socioeconomic, political, and cultural debates over whether and how to undertake market regulation and pursue racial equality. As a result, adversarialism came to play a key role in defining American legal institutions and practices, as well as national identity.

Need Legal History tutors? Start your search below:
Need Legal History course notes? Start your search below: