Description
Book SynopsisIn this exploration of modern legal culture, Friedman addresses how the contemporary idea of individual rights has altered the legal systems and authority structures of Western societies. Every aspect of law, he arguesfrom civil rights to personal-injury litigation to divorce lawhas been profoundly reshaped, reflecting the power of this concept.
Trade ReviewFriedman’s book is a bold, imaginative, and carefully reasoned effort to describe the major characteristics of modern American law and its underlying social norms. Law, he urges, is not an autonomous discipline; it grows out of changing popular demands and values. How and why popular legal culture changed during the last century and a half is one important theme of this work. -- Maxwell Bloomfield, The Catholic University of America
This book synthesizes much that has been going on in American culture, both in general attitudes and more specifically with respect to law and legal culture. There are few legal scholars that have Friedman’s breadth of background across a vast range of legal issues, and this shows in the wide variety of materials and examples that are brought to bear in behalf of his central thesis. The central theme that we are becoming a ‘republic of choice’ is given a fresh and inviting statement, one that will surely provoke interest. -- Stanton Wheeler, Yale Law School
This is the first book that draws on the social research about law that has burgeoned in the last twenty years to produce a general interpretive characterization of contemporary American society. It is full of keen and original observations about the ‘legal culture’ and the public consciousness that informs and expresses it. -- Marc Galanter, University of Wisconsin Law School
Table of Contents1. Introduction 2. Legalism and Individualism 3. Modernity and the Rise of the Individual 4. Technology and Change 5. On Modern Legal Culture 6. The Chosen Republic 7. Gods, Kings, and Movie Stars 8. Crime, Sexuality, and Social Disorganization 9. The Life-Style Society 10. A Stab at Assessment Appendix: Social Meanings of Key Terms Notes Index
