This collection of seventeen original essays reshapes the field of
early American legal history not by focusing simply on law, or even
on the relationship between law and society, but by using the
concept of "legality" to explore the myriad ways in which the
people of early America ordered their relationships with one
another, whether as individuals, groups, classes, communities, or
states.
Addressing issues of gender, ethnicity, family, patriarchy,
culture, and dependence, contributors explore the transatlantic
context of early American law, the negotiation between European and
indigenous legal cultures, the multiple social contexts of the rule
of law, and the transformation of many legalities into an
increasingly uniform legal culture. Taken together, these essays
reveal the extraordinary diversity and complexity of the roots of
early America's legal culture.
Contributors are Mary Sarah Bilder, Holly Brewer, James F. Brooks,
Richard Lyman Bushman, Christine Daniels, Cornelia Hughes Dayton,
David Barry Gaspar, Katherine Hermes, John G. Kolp, David Thomas
Konig, James Muldoon, William M. Offutt Jr., Ann Marie Plane, A. G.
Roeber, Terri L. Snyder, and Linda L. Sturtz.
