Description
Book SynopsisExamines the interaction of law and social change in American history. Tort law is traditionally thought to arise out of legal precedent. But Kenneth Abraham and Edward White show that American judges over the course of the previous two centuries also paid close attention to changing societal contexts in which lawsuits for civil injuries arose.
Trade ReviewThis timely, lucid, and compelling book offers fresh and insightful treatments of important topics in tort law and law more generally, demonstrating at a granular level the phenomenon of law as a semi-autonomous institution."- John C.P. Goldberg, Harvard Law School, coauthor of Recognizing Wrongs
"Abraham and White present as powerful an argument as possible for a distinctively lawyers’ logic in the management of social change. This book makes readers stop and think anew about the role of law in a changing world and will appeal to anyone interested in figuring out a path out of our present predicaments. An important intervention in the field"- John Fabian Witt, Yale Law School, author of
The Accidental Republic: Crippled Workingmen, Destitute Widows, and the Remaking of American LawTable of Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1. The Epistemology of the Civil Trial and the Rise of Modern Tort Liability
- 2. Conceptualizing Tort Law—the Continuous(and Continuing) Struggle
- 3. The Problem of the Dignitary Torts
- 4. The First Amendment and the Constitutionalization of Tort Liability
- 5. Torts without Names, New Torts, and the Future of Liability for Intangible Harm
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Index
