American Legal Realism

A comprehensive, in-depth discussion of the most influential movement in American legal history, and one which remains more than fifty years later the subject of lively debate, this collection of readings, written largely between 1900 and 1940, includes works from prominent writers on the subject that have never before been generally available. Introduced and edited by noted scholars in the field, the anthology includes such contributors as Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Thayer, Roscoe Pound, John Chipman Gray, Wesley Hohfeld, Karl Llewellyn, Arthur Corbin, Nathan Issacs, Robert Hale, Harold Laski, Max Radin, and others. With concise biographical notes as well as introductions to provide historical context, each selection addresses a different debate involving Legal Realism. Included is a selective bibliography, making the text valuable to a broad range of scholars.

List of contents

• I. Antecedents


• The Common Law (1881)


• "The Origin and Scope of the American Doctrine of Constitutional Law" (1893)


• The Path of the Law (1897)


• Lochner v. New York (1905) (Holmes, J., dissenting)


• "Liberty of Contract" (1909)


• The Nature and Sources of the Law (1909)


• "Law in Books and Law in Action" (1910)


• "Some Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning" (1913)


• II. The Struggle over the Meaning of "Realism"


• "A Realistic Jurisprudence--The Next Step" (1930)


• "The Call for Realist Jurisprudence" (1931)


• "Some Realism About Realism--Responding to Dean Pound" (1931)


• III. Law and the Market


• "Offer and Acceptance, and Some of the Resulting Legal Relations" (1917)


• "The Standardizing of Contracts" (1917)


• "What Price Contract?--An Essay in Perspective" (1931)


• "The Reliance Interest in Contract Damages" (1936-1937)


• IV. The Critique of the Public/Private Distinction


• "Coercion and Distribution in a Supposedly Non-Coercive State" (1923)


• "Property and Sovereignty" (1927)


• "Law Making by Private Groups" (1937)


• M. Witmark and Sons v. Fred Fisher Music Co. (1942) (Frank, J., dissenting)


• V. Law and Organizational Society


• Vegelahn V. Guntner (1896)


• " The Basis of Vicarious Liability" (1917)


• International News Service v. Associated Press (1918)


• "The Historic Background of Corporate Legal Personality" (1926)


• The Modern Corporation and Private Property (1932)


• The Administrative Process (1938)


• VI. Legal Reasoning


• The Nature of the Judicial Process (1921)


• Pennsylvania Coal Company v. Mahon (1922)


• "Logical Method and Law" (1924)


• The Theory of Judicial Decision: Or How Judges Think" (1925)


• "A Return to Stare Decisis" (1928)


• "The Judgement Intuitive: The Function of the 'Hunch' in Judicial Decision" (1929)


• Law and the Modern Mind (1930)


• "Transcendental Nonsense and the Functional Approach" (1935)


• "Remarks on the Theory of Apellate Decision and the Rules or Canons About How Statutes Are to Be Construed" (1950)


• VII. Law as Social Science


• Brief Defendant in Error, Muller v. Oregon (1908)


• "Scientific Method and the Law" (1927)


• The Cheyenne Way (1941)


• "Law and Learning Theory: A Study in Legal Control" (1943)


• VIII. Legal Education and Legal Scholarship


• Summary of Studies in Legal Education (1929)


• "Institute Priests and Yale Observers--A Reply to Dean Goodrich" (1936)


• "Goodbye to Law Reviews" (1936)


• Notes


• Bibliography

About the author

Edited by William W. Fisher, III, Professor of Law, Director of the Harvard Program on Legal History, Morton J. Horwitz, Charles Warren Professor of the History of American Law, both at Harvard Law School, United States, and Thomas A. Reed, Assistant District Attorney, Assistant District Attorney, Norfolk County, Massachusetts

Summary

This anthology offers a set of readings in Legal Realism, the most influential movement in American legal history, and one which remains more than fifty years later the subject of lively debate. The readings were mostly written between 1900 and 1940 and are not generally available. The book includes a general introduction and a comprehensive annotated bibliography.

Product details

• Assisted by: William W. III Fisher (Editor), Morton J. Horwitz (Editor), Thomas Reed (Editor)
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.10.1993
• EAN: 9780195071238
• ISBN: 978-0-19-507123-8
• No. of pages: 346
• Dimensions: 152 mm x 229 mm x 20 mm
• Weight: 562 g
• Subject: Social sciences, law, business > Law > Miscellaneous