John M. Zane (1863–1937) was a distinguished attorney.

Charles J. Reid, Jr. is Professor at the School of Law, University of Saint Thomas.

The post The Story of Law appeared first on Liberty Fund.

M. J. C. Vile is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Kent at Canterbury and author of The Structure of American Federalism.

The post Constitutionalism and the Separation of Powers appeared first on Liberty Fund.

Ellis Sandoz is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Eric Voegelin Institute at Louisiana State University.

The post The Roots of Liberty appeared first on Liberty Fund.

Heinrich A. Rommen (1897–1967) taught in Germany and England before concluding his distinguished scholarly career at Georgetown University.

Russell Hittinger is William K. Warren Professor of Catholic Studies and Research Professor of Law at the University of Tulsa.

The post The Natural Law appeared first on Liberty Fund.

Now published in the U.S. for the first time, Pound’s lectures are collected in Liberty Fund’s The Ideal Element in Law, Pound’s most important contribution to the relationship between law and liberty.

The Ideal Element in Law was a radical book for its time and is just as meaningful today as when Pound’s lectures were first delivered. Pound’s view of the welfare state as a means of expanding government power over the individual speaks to the front-page issues of the new millennium as clearly as it did to America in the mid-twentieth century.

Pound argues that the theme of justice grounded in enduring ideals is critical for America. He views American courts as relying on sociological theories, political ends, or other objectives, and in so doing, divorcing the practice of law from the rule of law and the rule of law from the enduring ideal of law itself.

Roscoe Pound is universally recognized as one of the most important legal minds of the early twentieth century. Considered by many to be the dean of American jurisprudence, Pound was a former Justice of the Supreme Court of Nebraska and served as dean of Harvard Law School from 1916 to 1936.

The post The Ideal Element in Law appeared first on Liberty Fund.

Volume one begins with an examination of Anglo-Saxon law, goes on to consider the changes in law introduced by the Normans, then moves to the twelfth-century “Age of Glanvill,” with the first great compilation of English laws and customs, followed by the thirteenth-century “Age of Bracton,” author of another major treatise on the same subject. Volume two takes up different areas of English law topic by topic, or as its authors labeled it, “The Doctrines of English Law in the Early Middle Ages.” They consider land tenure, marriage and wardship, fealty, the ranks of men both free and unfree, aliens, Jews, excommunicates, women, and the churches and the King, before turning to the various jurisdictions of that decentralized era.

The History of English Law before the Time of Edward I helps readers explore the origins of English legal exceptionalism and through the English tradition the basis of the law of America, Canada, Australia, and other nations. This work is of interest to legal scholars, historians of the Middle Ages, political scientists, political philosophers, and all those interested in Anglo-Saxon law and early law and society.

The post The History of English Law before the Time of Edward I appeared first on Liberty Fund.

The first half of the book is a historical introduction to the study of law. Plucknett discusses the conditions in political, economic, social, and religious thought that have contributed to the genesis of law. This section is a brief but astoundingly full introduction to the study of law.

The second half of the book consists of chapters introducing the reader to the history of some of the main divisions of law, such as criminal, tort, property, contract, and succession. These topics are treated with careful exposition so that the book will be of interest to those just embarking on their quest in legal history while still providing enough substantial information, references, and footnotes to make it meaningful for the well-versed legal history reader.

Theodore F. T. Plucknett (1897–1965) was an English legal historian. At twenty-six, he was appointed by Roscoe Pound as professor of legal history at Harvard Law School.

The post A Concise History of the Common Law appeared first on Liberty Fund.

Charles Howard McIlwain won the Pulitzer Prize in 1924 for his constitutional analysis of the American Revolution.

The post Constitutionalism: Ancient and Modern appeared first on Liberty Fund.

Fred S. McChesney is James B. Haddad Class of 1967 Professor of Law at the Northwestern University School of Law, focusing on business and antitrust law and their intersection with economic theory.

The post The Collected Works of Henry G. Manne appeared first on Liberty Fund.

This exclusive Liberty Fund edition of F. W. Maitland’s classic includes a note on Maitland by Charles Haskins, and a general account of Maitland’s life and work, “The Historical Spirit Incarnate: Frederic William Maitland,” by Robert Schuyler.

A historian’s historian, F. W. Maitland was never to be caught indulging in fanciful speculation about times long past. Rather, he said, “We shall have to think away distinctions which seem to us as clear as the sunshine; we must think ourselves back into a twilight.” To achieve this discipline, Maitland chose his tools of historical analysis with a lawyer’s care. For example, to decipher works of medieval law written in Anglo-French patois, he became “grammarian, orthographer, and phoneticist.”

Thus did none other than Lord Acton declare Maitland to be “the ablest historian in England.” In 1875, at only twenty-five years of age, Maitland, in pursuit of a fellowship in Cambridge University, submitted a remarkable work entitled “A Historical Sketch of Liberty and Equality as Ideals of English Political History from the Time of Hobbes to the Time of Coleridge.”

F. W. Maitland (1850–1906) was the Downing Professor of the Laws of England at the University of Cambridge and an unparalleled scholar of medieval law.

The post A Historical Sketch of Liberty and Equality appeared first on Liberty Fund.