Get Free Shipping on orders over $79
A Concise History Of American Law - William E. Nelson

A Concise History Of American Law

By: William E. Nelson

Hardcover | 28 November 2025

At a Glance

Hardcover


$386.99

or 4 interest-free payments of $96.75 with

 or 

Available for Backorder. We will order this from our supplier however there isn't a current ETA.

A Concise History of American Law traces the development of the US legal order from the colonial era to the twenty-first century. Emphasizing the essential role of the common law--derived from judicial precedent, rather than legislation--eminent legal historian William E. Nelson examines the foundations of the American rule of law and its interactions over time with political, economic, and societal transformations. Synthesizing the broad structural, institutional, and ideological changes embedded within American legal history illuminates the significant role courts have played in structuring politics and society. Nelson's accessible chronological narrative details how the rule of law has both facilitated change, by protecting the rights of those who advocate for it, and inhibited change, by acting as a conservative bulwark protecting the rights and property of the rich and powerful. Weaving this fundamental tension between law and politics into his pithy account of how the law was made and practiced over three centuries of American history, Nelson has produced an invaluable guide to the intricate evolution of the modern US legal system.

More in History of the Americas

The Shortest History of the United States of America - Don Watson
107 Days - Kamala Harris

Hardcover

RRP $49.99

$34.95

30%
OFF
Native America : The Story of the First Peoples - Kenneth L. Feder

RRP $69.99

$54.99

21%
OFF
Dragon on Centre Street : New York vs. Donald J. Trump - Jonah Bromwich
Antisemitism, an American Tradition - Pamela S. Nadell

RRP $52.95

$40.75

23%
OFF
The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy - John J Mearsheimer
The Greatest Sentence Ever Written - Walter Isaacson
CBK: Carolyn Bessette Kennedy : A Life in Fashion - Sunita Kumar Nair

RRP $100.00

$70.99

29%
OFF
The Witches : Salem, 1692 - Stacy Schiff

RRP $26.99

$22.99

15%
OFF
Alexander Hamilton - Ron Chernow

RRP $27.99

$23.75

15%
OFF
Zbig : The Life of Zbigniew Brzezinski, America's Cold War Prophet - Edward Luce