A History of American Law »

Lawrence M. Friedman was born in 1930, educated at the University of Chicago where he earned his law degree, and admitted to the Illinois bar in 1951. He received a graduate degree from the University of Chicago Law School in English legal history. After serving in the United States Army, he practiced with a law firm in Chicago and subsequently entered the teaching profession. He has taught at St. Louis University, the University of Wisconsin, and, since 1968, at Stanford University, where he is now Marion Rice Kirkwood Professor of Law. He is the author of Contract Law in America: A Social and Economic Case Study (1965); Government and Slum Housing: A Century of Frustration (1968); Law and the Behavioral Sciences (coeditor; 1969, 2nd edition, 1977); The Legal System: A Social Science Perspective (1975); Law and Society: An Introduction (1977); American Law and the Constitutional Order: Historical Perspectives (coeditor, 1978); Law and Social Change in Mediterranean Europe and Latin America (coeditor, 1979); The Roots of Justice: Crime and Punishment in Alameda County, California, 1870-1910 (coauthor, 1981); American Law (1984); Your Time Will Come (1985); and Total Justice (1985). He has contributed more than eighty articles to legal and associated journals. Professor Friedman is the past president of the Law and Society Association, and a past Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and of the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the recipient of a number of awards for writing and teaching. He is married and has two daughters.

In this update of the 1985 edition cited in Books for College Libraries, 3rd ed., Friedman (law, Stanford U.) presents a social history tracing law in America from the Colonial and frontier eras to the present. The accessible reader's main emphasis remains on the 19th century but treatment of such contemporary legal issues as environmental law, the death penalty, and family law has been expanded and in some cases, reflects the author's evolving views. He concludes that the US legal system is unlikely to change dramatically in the foreseeable future. A biographical essay offers insight into uneven coverage of this subject. The first edition appeared in 1973. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR