"In a panoramic history of our criminal justice system from colonial times to today, one of our foremost legal thinkers shows how America fashioned a system of crime and punishment in its own image." "Lawrence M. Friedman argues that the evolution of criminal justice has reflected transformations in America's character. Thus the theocratic world of seventeenth-century Puritanism generated a peculiar equation between crime and sin. The extraordinary...

Chronicles the history of American law from its beginnings in the colonies to the end of the twentieth century, highlighting the achievements and failures of the American legal system.

American law in the twentieth century describes the explosion of law over the past century into almost every aspect of American life. Since 1900 the center of legal gravity in the United States has shifted from the state to the federal government, with the creation of agencies and programs ranging from Social Security to the Securities Exchange Commission to the Food and Drug Administration. Major demographic changes have spurred legal developments...

In this book on the genesis, development, and present-day reality of American law, Friedman explores the law as it is embedded in social life rather than as an isolated body of rules. Along with anecdote and historical detail, he explains how laws are made, from the United States and state constitutions and legislatures to small-town zoning boards, and how law is administered by courts and other agencies. Covering an enormous variety of law -- antitrust,...