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Michael E. Parrish [View as PDF]
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112 Yale L.J. 925 (2003)
In this appraisal of Lawrence M. Friedman's American Law in the Twentieth Century, I begin in Part I with a survey of the several "schools" of American legal history that have risen to prominence in the years since World War II, utilizing a suggestive framework first offered by Professor Stephen Presser two decades ago. In Part II, I discuss Professor Friedman's intellectual debt to Willard Hurst, as well as his previous scholarly efforts to synthesize major developments in American law over the last century. Part III assesses the organizational framework, methodology, and interpretations of evidence offered by Friedman in the present book, while Part IV provides a critical discussion of these strategies. Part V raises the question of the relationship of American legal history to what has been characterized, and criticized, by some historians as "Whig" history, and offers a final assessment of Friedman's newest volume.
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