A classic study of the social and economic realities of trade law,
told through case studies and rich historical analysis. Comparing
contract cases and legislation over three discrete historical
periods, Lawrence Friedman shows that social context matters, that
law is more flexible and adaptive than traditional doctrinal
studies would suggest, and that the framing of contract law can use
a fresh reexamination in light of the historical realities he
exposes.
A recognized study in law & society, this volume previously
hid out as a rare book or was completely unavailable. Now readily
accessible worldwide, it also features a new preface by the author
as well as a new, analytical foreword by Stewart Macaulay, a senior
professor of law at the University of Wisconsin.
As Macaulay notes, Friedman's "Contract Law in America" "still
challenges those who research, write and teach in the field of
contracts. His findings and arguments still call for a serious
response today." Has contracts doctrine become "the law of
leftovers"? In any event, Macaulay sums up, "Friedman combines
scholarship that takes him into dusty archives with insight into
the broader effect of both public culture and legal culture. I am
continually and pleasantly surprised when I read him."
As with all the quality contributions to Quid Pro's "Classics of
Law & Society" Series, this book features modern formatting,
legible tables, and hyperaccurate proofreading from the original
text. Moreover, it embeds page numbers from the first edition (in
both print and digital formats), for continuity of references.
"Praise for this anniversary edition of the book abounds: "
""Contract Law in America" is one of the most important works in
the entire scholarly literature on American legal history. Friedman
took a subject that had been treated by researchers in exclusively
doctrinal terms, bringing an entirely new perspective that revealed
how contract law has been at the very center of how we need to
understand 'law in action' in key periods of American development.
In the methodology that Friedman applied, in the brilliance of the
analysis, and in the new light his book cast on the full dimensions
of governance and law in the United States, this book broke new
ground. It remains today, still, required reading for any student
of legal history."
- Harry N. Scheiber
Stefan A. Riesenfeld Professor of Law and History, University of
California at Berkeley
"The republishing of "Contract Law in America" is a very welcome
event. For years this has been one of the neglected classics of
legal literature. Friedman did what the Legal Realists only dreamed
of doing-he studied in depth what kinds of contracts cases state
courts had decided over time, and found grand patterns in the
decisions. As real-world contracts dropped out of common law
litigation and into private ordering and specialized regulation,
courts abandoned abstract formal rule-making for particularized
equitable resolutions. In the present moment, more receptive to
social and empirical studies of law than was 1965, Friedman's book
should finally find the audience it deserves."
- Robert W. Gordon
Chancellor Kent Professor of Law and Legal History, Emeritus, Yale
University; and
Professor of Law, Stanford University
""Contract Law in America" remains a classic examination of the
relationships among legal doctrine, legal culture, and the shifting
frameworks of American business enterprise. Amid the current
academic re-engagement with questions of political economy, we can
only hope that more historians, social scientists, and legal
scholars acquaint themselves with Friedman's probing analysis of
how law did, and did not, influence American commerce, and how
commerce did, and did not, influence American law."
- Edward J. Balleisen
Associate Professor of History, Duke University
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