Taming the Past: Essays on Law in History and History in Law
Jun 2017 · Cambridge University Press
Ebook
439
Pages
About this ebook
Lawyers and judges often make arguments based on history - on the authority of precedent and original constitutional understandings. They argue both to preserve the inspirational, heroic past and to discard its darker pieces - such as feudalism and slavery, the tyranny of princes and priests, and the subordination of women. In doing so, lawyers tame the unruly, ugly, embarrassing elements of the past, smoothing them into reassuring tales of progress. In a series of essays and lectures written over forty years, Robert W. Gordon describes and analyses how lawyers approach the past and the strategies they use to recruit history for present use while erasing or keeping at bay its threatening or inconvenient aspects. Together, the corpus of work featured in Taming the Past offers an analysis of American law and society and its leading historians since 1900.
Lawyers and judges often make arguments based on history - on the authority of precedent and original constitutional understandings. They argue both to preserve the inspirational, heroic past and to discard its darker pieces - such as feudalism and slavery, the tyranny of princes and priests, and...
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About the author
Robert W. Gordon is a Professor of Law at Stanford University, California. He was President of the American Society for Legal History in 2000, has served on several bar association committees and task forces devoted to reform of the profession, and has previously taught at the University of Wisconsin, Yale University, Connecticut, Harvard University Massachusetts and the University of Oxford.
Robert W. Gordon is a Professor of Law at Stanford University, California. He was President of the American Society for Legal History in 2000, has served on several bar association committees and task forces devoted to reform of the profession, and has previously taught at the University of Wisco...
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