Legal history and comparative law -- British colonization in North America -- Legal foundation for the new republic : 1776 to 1791 -- The formative era : 1791-1865 -- Historical jurisprudence and learned law : 1865-1900 -- The modern development : 1900-1945 -- Postwar legal transplants and growth of the academic discipline : 1945-1990 -- Between globalization and nationalism : a history of the future after 1990.
Summary:
"Historical Comparative Law and Comparative Legal History Legal history and comparative law overlap in important respects. This is more apparent with the use of some methods for comparison, such as legal transplant, natural law, or nation building. M.N.S. Sellers nicely portrayed the relationship. The past is a foreign country, its people strangers and its laws obscure.... No one can really understand her or his own legal system without leaving it first, and looking back from the outside. The comparative study of law makes one's own legal system more comprehensible, by revealing its idiosyncrasies. Legal history is comparative law without travel. Legal historians, perhaps especially in the United States, have been skeptical about the possibility of a fruitful comparative legal history, preferring in general to investigate the distinctiveness of their national experience. Comparatists, however, content with revealing or promoting similarities or differences between legal systems, by their nature strive toward comparison. Some American historians, especially since World War II, see the value in this"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.