Common Law, History, and Democracy in America, 1790-1900: Legal Thought Before Modernism

This book argues for a change in our understanding of the relationships among law, politics, and history. Since the turn of the nineteenth century, a certain anti-foundational conception of history has served to undermine law's foundations, such that we tend to think of law as nothing other than a species of politics. Thus viewed, the activity of unelected, common law judges appears to be an encroachment on the space of democracy. However, Kunal M. Parker shows that the world of the nineteenth century looked rather different. Democracy was itself constrained by a sense that history possessed a logic, meaning, and direction that democracy could not contravene. In such a world, far from law being seen in opposition to democracy, it was possible to argue that law - specifically, the common law - did a better job than democracy of guiding America along history's path.

Author: Kunal M. Parker
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 04/30/2011
Pages: 318
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.40lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.20w x 1.00d
ISBN: 9780521519953

About the Author
Parker, Kunal M.: - Kunal M. Parker is Professor at the University of Miami School of Law. He was previously the James A. Thomas Distinguished Professor of Law at Cleveland State University and has held fellowships at New York University Law School, Cornell Law School, Queens University, Belfast, and the American Bar Foundation. Professor Parker has served on the editorial boards of PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review and Law and Social Inquiry. His writing focuses on the history and theory of immigration and citizenship law, the history of law in colonial India, US intellectual and legal history, and the philosophy of history.Parker, Kunal M.: - Kunal M. Parker is Professor at the University of Miami School of Law. He was previously the James A. Thomas Distinguished Professor of Law at Cleveland State University and has held fellowships at New York University Law School, Cornell Law School, Queens University, Belfast, and the American Bar Foundation. Professor Parker has served on the editorial boards of PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review and Law and Social Inquiry. His writing focuses on the history and theory of immigration and citizenship law, the history of law in colonial India, US intellectual and legal history, and the philosophy of history.