Legal History

This book presents an in-depth exploration of the administration of justice during Islam’s founding period, 632–1250 CE. Inspired by the scholarshi...

Attuned to the social contexts within which laws are created, feminist lawyers, historians, and activists have long recognized the discontinuities ...

In the mid-twentieth century, gay life flourished in American cities even as the state repression of queer communities reached its peak. Liquor inv...

Ronald Dworkin once imagined law as an empire and judges as its princes. But over time, the arc of law has bent steadily toward deference to the ad...

From the early seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth century, the Tokugawa shogunate enacted and enforced myriad laws and ordinances to control nearly ...

Most Internet users are familiar with trolling—aggressive, foul-mouthed posts designed to elicit angry responses in a site’s comments. Less familia...

How the imposition of Crown rule across the British Empire during the Age of Revolution corroded the rights of British subjects and laid the founda...

The First Seminole War of 1816–1818 played a critical role in shaping how the United States demarcated its spatial and legal boundaries during the ...

A stunning revision of our founding document’s evolving history that forces us to confront anew the question that animated the founders so long ago...

Born into slavery in rural Louisiana, Rose Herera was bought and sold several times before being purchased by the De Hart family of New Orleans. St...

The first account of the August Trials, in which postwar Poland confronted the betrayal of Jewish citizens under Nazi rule but ended up fashioning ...

An Open Letters Monthly Best Nonfiction Book of the YearAmerica’s criminal justice system is broken. The United States punishes at a higher per cap...

The rule of law has vanished in America’s criminal justice system. Prosecutors now decide whom to punish and how severely. Almost no one accused of...

A Financial Times Best History Book of the YearA surprising account of frontier law that challenges the image of the Wild West. In the absence of s...

We Make Each Other Beautiful focuses on woman of color and queer of color artists and artist collectives who engage in direct political action as a...