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Ultimately, says William Nelson, a new legal ideology was created. By the late 1930s, New Yorkers had begun to reconceptualize social conflict not along class lines but in terms of the power of majorities and the rights of minorities. In the process, they constructed a new approach to law and politics. 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Judge Edward Weinfeld's personal growth and socio-economic mobility provides an excellent illustration of how Catholics and Jews descended from turn-of-the-century immigrants were assimilated into the mainstream of New York and American life during the course of the twentieth century. Weinfeld left a rich collection of personal papers that William E. Nelson examines, which depict the compromises and sacrifices Weinfeld had to make to attain professional advancement. Weinfeld's jurisprudence remained closely tied to his own personal values and to the historical contexts in which cases came to his court.   Nelson aptly describes how Weinfeld strove to avoid making new law. He tried to make decisions on preexisting rules or bedrock legal principles; he achieved just results by searching for and finding facts that called those rules into play. 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Nelson then turns to constitutional events leading to the Revolution. Here he shows how lawyers deployed ideological arguments not for their own sake, but in order to protect colonial institutional structures and the socio-economic interests of their clients. As lawyers deployed the arguments, they developed them into a constitutional theory that gave primacy to common-law constitutional rights and local self-government. 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While some legal realists see the emphasis on precedent as a veneer to hide the judges’ policy preferences, Nelson shows that this explanation does not fit the evidence. The judges had no consistent policy preferences, and their decisions favored a wide array of policies.  Two Forms of Conservatism is the work of an expert historian with an eye for detail and a deep understanding of legal thought. 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Nelson pointedly examines the disparate motives of the legal systems in the respective colonies as they dealt with religion, price and labor regulations, crimes, public morals, the status of women, and the enforcement of contractual obligations. He reveals how Virginians' zeal for profit led to a harsh legal framework that efficiently squeezed payment out of debtors and labor out of servants; whereas the laws of Massachusetts were primarily concerned with the preservation of local autonomy and the moral values of family-centered farming communities. The law in the other New England colonies, Nelson argues, gravitated towards the Massachusetts model, while Maryland's law, gravitated toward that of Virginia. Comprehensive, authoritative, and extensively researched, The Common Law in Colonial America, Volume 1: The Chesapeake and New England, 1607-1660 is the definitive resource on the beginnings of the common law and its evolution during this vibrant era in America's history. William E. 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Nelson reveals how John Marshall deftly avoided a dangerous political confrontation between the executive and judicial branches by upholding the rule of law, and how he managed to shore up the Court's prestige and power rather than have it serve partisan political agendas.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51695218917649,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51695220392209,"sku":"CIN0700626409G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52327180402961,"sku":"NLS9780700626403","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52699521351953,"sku":"CIN0700626409VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0700626409.jpg?v=1758794460"},{"product_id":"common-law-in-colonial-america-book-william-e-nelson-9780190465056","title":"The Common Law in Colonial America","description":"In a projected four-volume series, The Common Law in Colonial America, William E. 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Drawing from both a rich archival base and existing scholarship on the topic, the first volume demonstrated how the legal systems of Britain's thirteen North American colonies-each of which had unique economies, political structures, and religious institutions -slowly converged into a common law order that differed substantially from English common law.   The first volume focused on how the legal systems of the Chesapeake colonies--Virginia and Maryland--contrasted with those of the New England colonies and traced these dissimilarities from the initial settlement of America until approximately 1660. In this new volume, Nelson brings the discussion forward, covering the years from 1660, which saw the Restoration of the British monarchy, to 1730. In particular, he analyzes the impact that an increasingly powerful British government had on the evolution of the common law in the New World. As the reach of the Crown extended, Britain imposed far more restrictions than before on the new colonies it had chartered in the Carolinas and the middle Atlantic region. The government's intent was to ensure that colonies' laws would align more tightly with British law. Nelson examines how the newfound coherence in British colonial policy led these new colonies to develop common law systems that corresponded more closely with one another, eliminating much of the variation that socio-economic differences had created in the earliest colonies. As this volume reveals, these trends in governance ultimately resulted in a tension between top-down pressures from Britain for a more uniform system of laws and bottom-up pressures from colonists to develop their own common law norms and preserve their own distinctive societies. Authoritative and deeply researched, the volumes in The Common Law of Colonial America will become the foundational resource for anyone interested the history of American law before the Revolution.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52352185663761,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52352186220817,"sku":"NLS9780199937752","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780199937752.jpg?v=1758181685"},{"product_id":"concise-history-of-american-law-book-william-e-nelson-9780197831144","title":"A Concise History of American Law","description":"A Concise History of American Law traces the development of the US legal order from the colonial era to the twenty-first century. Emphasizing the essential role of the common law--derived from judicial precedent, rather than legislation--eminent legal historian William E. 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He subsequently determines the type of cases over which each institution had jurisdiction and studies the procedures by which each functioned. He examines the tendency after 1800 to bring disputes to the court and sees this as a response to the introduction of new, nontraditional values not held by local institutions.  A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52474022363409,"sku":"NLS9780807897362","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52740222451985,"sku":"NIN9780807897362","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780807897362.jpg?v=1763475333"},{"product_id":"marbury-v-madison-book-william-e-nelson-9780700626533","title":"Marbury V. Madison","description":"On the surface, the case itself seems a minor one at best. William Marbury, a last-minute judicial appointee of outgoing Federalist president John Adams, demanded redress from the Supreme Court when his commission was not delivered. But Chief Justice John Marshall could clearly see the danger his demand posed for a weak court filled with Federalist judges. Wary of the Court’s standing with the new Republican administration of Thomas Jefferson, Marshall hit upon a solution that was both principled and pragmatic. He determined that while Marbury was justified in his suit, the law on which his claim was based was in conflict with the Constitution. It was the first time that the Court struck down an act of Congress as unconstitutional, thus establishing the doctrine of judicial review that designates the Court as chief interpreter of the Constitution.Nelson relates the story behind Marbury and explains why it is a foundational case for understanding the Supreme Court. He reveals how Marshall deftly avoided a dangerous political confrontation between the executive and judicial branches by upholding the rule of law. Nelson also shows how Marshall managed to shore up the Court’s prestige and power rather than have it serve partisan political agendas.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52616621818129,"sku":"NLS9780700626533","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780700626533.jpg?v=1763222650"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-au\/collections\/author-books-by-william-e-nelson.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}