In Law in American History, Volume III: 1930-2000, the eminent legal scholar G. Edward White concludes his sweeping history of law in America, from the colonial era to the near-present. Picking up where his previous volume left off, at the end of the 1920s, White turns his attention to modern developments in both public and private law. One of his findings is that despite the massive changes in American society since the New Deal, some of the landmark constitutional decisions from that period remain salient today. An illustration is the Court's sweeping interpretation of the reach of Congress's power under the Commerce Clause in Wickard v. Filburn (1942), a decision that figured prominently in the Supreme Court's recent decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act. In these formative years of modern American jurisprudence, courts responded to, and affected, the emerging role of the state and federal governments as regulatory and redistributive institutions and the growing participation of the United States in world affairs. They extended their reach into domains they had mostly ignored: foreign policy, executive power, criminal procedure, and the rights of speech, sexuality, and voting. Today, the United States continues to grapple with changing legal issues in each of those domains. Law in American History, Volume III provides an authoritative introduction to how modern American jurisprudence emerged and evolved of the course of the twentieth century, and the impact of law on every major feature of American life in that century. White's two preceding volumes and this one constitute a definitive treatment of the role of law in American history.

About the Author
G. Edward White is David and Mary Harrison Distinguished Professor of Law and University Professor at the University of Virginia. His seventeen previous books include The American Judicial Tradition, The Marshall Court and Cultural Change,and Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: Law and the Inner Self, all of which have won major prizes. White is also the editor of the John Harvard Library edition of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., The Common Law.

Reviews
This volume is a fitting conclusion to Professor White's magisterial review of the history of American constitutional law. White began his career with focus on the formative era of our constitutional law in the immediate post-Revolutionary era. His work on the founding era is unparalleled, but he has now demonstrated that he has an equally sure hand for the description of the recent past. White's analytical skills and narrative mastery situate the present brilliantly in the past, and enable contemporary readers to historicize contemporary constitutional developments. The period under review in the third volume is as contested as any in our history, and this volume is an essential interpretation of the role of constitutional law in our deeply contested democracy. All Americans are in White's debt for this fine work. * Stanley N. Katz, Prof of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University and Editor Emeritus Oliver Wendell Holmes Devise History of the United States Supreme Court *
Magisterial and sweeping, this history of twentieth century law is a master work of extraordinary scope and intellectual depth. The book addresses the major intellectual, jurisprudential and technological developments of the modern era, from war to globalization to the administrative state. This sets the backdrop for an extended analysis of the development of modern law. It should be essential reading for the widest possible array of legal scholars, from those who teach about the constitution, the administrative state, international law and jurisprudence, all of which play a significant role in the volume. * Victoria Nourse, Ralph V. Whitworth Professor of Law at Georgetown University *
In this wonderful capstone to a multivolume series, one of the finest legal historians of our time shows how the legal developments of the twentieth century transformed the way in which Americans approach legal doctrine and policy as well as their conception of government itself. White's volumes should be required reading for anyone trying to understand the historical evolution of American law, for as he shows, this history continues to wield profound influence today. * Amanda L. Tyler, Professor of Law, University of California at the Berkeley School of Law *



Book Information
ISBN 9780190634940
Author G. Edward White
Format Hardback
Page Count 1056
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 1678g
Dimensions(mm) 168mm * 236mm * 66mm