A Judgment for Solomon by Michael Grossberg
A Judgment for Solomon tells the story of the d'Hauteville case, a controversial child custody battle fought in 1840. It uses the story of one couple's bitter fight over their son to explore some timebound and timeless features of American legal culture. In a narrative analysis, it recounts how marital woes led Ellen and Gonzalve d'Hauteville into what Alexis de Tocqueville called the 'shadow of the law'. Their multiple legal experiences culminated in an eagerly followed Philadelphia trial that sparked a national debate over the legal rights and duties of mothers and fathers, and husbands and wives. The story of the d'Hauteville case explains why popular trials become 'precedents of legal experience' - mediums for debates about highly contested social issues. It also demonstrates the ability of individual women and men to contribute to legal change by turning to the law to fight for what they want.-
Before Dred Scott
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The Crisis of Imprisonment
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Final Freedom
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The Deviant Prison
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Gangster of New York
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Thresholds of Accusation
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Oliver Wendell Holmes
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Industrial Violence and the Legal Origins of Child Labor
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City of Courts
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The Law of the Whale Hunt
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The Jurisprudence of Style
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Gender Remade
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The Constitutional Origins of the American Civil War
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Pierson v. Post, The Hunt for the Fox
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Common Law, History, and Democracy in America, 17901900
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Conjugal Misconduct
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Injury Impoverished
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Slavery and Sacred Texts
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Law's Imagined Republic
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The Turn to Process
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Owning Ideas
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Family, Law, and Inheritance in America
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The Bondsman's Burden
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Antitrust and Global Capitalism, 1930-2004
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The Foundations of the Modern Philippine State
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Recalibrating Reform
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The Racketeer's Progress
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From Slave Abuse to Hate Crime
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The Forgotten Emancipator
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Jim Crow Moves North
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Coercion, Contract, and Free Labor in the Nineteenth Century
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Thomas Jefferson, Legal History, and the Art of Recollection
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Bonds of Empire
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Making the Modern American Fiscal State
"Which parent should get the custody of a small child? In this compelling story of a bitter struggle over a 2-year old boy nearly 150 years ago, Michael Grossberg shows how Americans developed what were then new solutions to the competing claims of mothers and fathersEveryone interested in the developing law of child custody in our own time--highlighted in the tormented cases of Baby 'M', Baby Jessica, Baby Michael, and many others not widely publicized--will be fascinated by this book." Linda K. Kerber, May Brodbeck Professor in the Liberal Arts and Professor of History, University of Iowa
"A Judgement for Solomon aims to do more than describe an admittedly fascinating trial...This is a thoughtful work. Grossberg provocatively re-creates one particular legal conflict from a moment of widespread gender upheaval. A Judgement for Solomon deserves the attention of a wide range of readers." The Journal of American History
"Which parent should get the custody of a small child? In this compelling story of a bitter struggle over a 2-year old boy nearly 150 years ago, Michael Grossberg shows how Americans developed what were then new solutions to the competing claims of mothers and fathers. Everyone interested in the developing law of child custody in our own time--highlighted in the tormented cases of Baby 'M', Baby Jessica, Baby Michael, and many others not widely publicized--will be fascinated by this book." Linda K. Kerber, May Brodbeck Professor in the Liberal Arts and Professor of History, University of Iowa
"A Judgment for Solomon tells a fascinating story; at the same time, it is also a persuasive and thoughtful reflection on legal storytelling. We follow one couple (and their families) across the terrain of nineteenth century America and Europe, as they fought with each other and with the law for possession of a child. As we do so, Grossberg guides us through the tortured emergence of a particular vision of gendered parental identities that continues even today to dominate the legal imagination and our lives. At the same time, Grossberg's sympathetic and inclusive analysis leads the reader to reflect on how and why major public trials have assumed such obsessive moral weight in American culture. In its sustained use of a case study to study a crucial transition in our legal history, Michael Grossberg's book deserves comparison with E.P. Thompson's Whigs and Hunters." Hendrik Hartog, Class of 1921 Bicentennial Professor of the History of American Law and Liberty
"A Judgement for Solomon aims to do more than describe an admittedly fascinating trial...This is a thoughtful work. Grossberg provocatively re-creates one particular legal conflict from a moment of widespread gender upheaval. A Judgement for Solomon deserves the attention of a wide range of readers." The Journal of American History
"Michael Grossberg knows how to build suspense and reader interest in the strategies of both sides and the ways in which the principal players were refashioned by lawyers, judges, and newspaper writers....Grossberg is unusual among authors who devote a book to exploring a single case in that carries his tale beyond the framework of trial records and biography to consider theoretically and analytically what what it meant for propertied whites in antebellum Northeast to enter into what Alexis de Tocqueville called the 'shadow of the law." Cornelia Hughes Dayton, Journal of the Early Republic
"...an extremely valuable resource for anyone interested in the relation between law and society." Brook Thomas, Law & Social Theory
"A Judgement for Solomon aims to do more than describe an admittedly fascinating trial...This is a thoughtful work. Grossberg provocatively re-creates one particular legal conflict from a moment of widespread gender upheaval. A Judgement for Solomon deserves the attention of a wide range of readers." The Journal of American History
"Which parent should get the custody of a small child? In this compelling story of a bitter struggle over a 2-year old boy nearly 150 years ago, Michael Grossberg shows how Americans developed what were then new solutions to the competing claims of mothers and fathers. Everyone interested in the developing law of child custody in our own time--highlighted in the tormented cases of Baby 'M', Baby Jessica, Baby Michael, and many others not widely publicized--will be fascinated by this book." Linda K. Kerber, May Brodbeck Professor in the Liberal Arts and Professor of History, University of Iowa
"A Judgment for Solomon tells a fascinating story; at the same time, it is also a persuasive and thoughtful reflection on legal storytelling. We follow one couple (and their families) across the terrain of nineteenth century America and Europe, as they fought with each other and with the law for possession of a child. As we do so, Grossberg guides us through the tortured emergence of a particular vision of gendered parental identities that continues even today to dominate the legal imagination and our lives. At the same time, Grossberg's sympathetic and inclusive analysis leads the reader to reflect on how and why major public trials have assumed such obsessive moral weight in American culture. In its sustained use of a case study to study a crucial transition in our legal history, Michael Grossberg's book deserves comparison with E.P. Thompson's Whigs and Hunters." Hendrik Hartog, Class of 1921 Bicentennial Professor of the History of American Law and Liberty
"A Judgement for Solomon aims to do more than describe an admittedly fascinating trial...This is a thoughtful work. Grossberg provocatively re-creates one particular legal conflict from a moment of widespread gender upheaval. A Judgement for Solomon deserves the attention of a wide range of readers." The Journal of American History
"Michael Grossberg knows how to build suspense and reader interest in the strategies of both sides and the ways in which the principal players were refashioned by lawyers, judges, and newspaper writers....Grossberg is unusual among authors who devote a book to exploring a single case in that carries his tale beyond the framework of trial records and biography to consider theoretically and analytically what what it meant for propertied whites in antebellum Northeast to enter into what Alexis de Tocqueville called the 'shadow of the law." Cornelia Hughes Dayton, Journal of the Early Republic
"...an extremely valuable resource for anyone interested in the relation between law and society." Brook Thomas, Law & Social Theory
Grossberg, Michael: - Michael Grossberg is associate professor of history and adjunct associate professor of law at Case Western Reserve University.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780521552066 |
| ISBN 10 | 0521552060 |
| Title | A Judgment for Solomon |
| Author | Michael Grossberg |
| Series | Cambridge Historical Studies In American Law And Society |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| Year published | 1996-01-26 |
| Number of pages | 296 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |