The Cambridge History of Law in America: Volume 1 Early America (1580-1815)

One of the most exciting recent trends in the history of American law has been the proliferation of scholarship on law in early America. Volume I of the Cambridge History of Law in America reaps the advantage of this proliferation, beginning the account of law in America with the very first moments of European colonization and settlement of the North American landmass. It follows those processes across two hundred years to the eventual creation and stabilization of the American republic.

The book discusses the place of law in regard to colonization and empire, indigenous peoples, government and jurisdiction, population migrations, economic and commercial activity, religion, the creation of social institutions, and revolutionary politics. American legal history long treated the era of the founding of the republic and the early nineteenth century as the beginning of American law. Volume I disputes that tendency and corrects it. The Cambridge History of Law in America has been made possible by the generous support of the American Bar Foundation.