Overview

Americans have long been identified as a people of law and lawyers with an addiction to lawsuits. In Litigation Nation, Peter Charles Hoffer, one of America’s most preeminent legal historians, charts the history of civil litigation from the seventeenth century to the present, using key cases pursued by ordinary people to illustrate how the civil courts have been a battlefront to contest the boundaries of permissible personal conduct in times of social and political change. Using representative case studies from each period—from defamation suits in seventeenth-century America to recent civil rights and gender discrimination lawsuits, Hoffer’s concise and accessible history shows how litigation reflects the lives and values of ordinary Americans.

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Although the court cases that Mr. hoffer recounts involving intimate and business shenanigans among the Puritans are great fun, he has a more important point to make. Once society was rooted less in such small communities, defamation seemed a concern only for the famous or infamous. Today, harmful words are again a source of litigation. . . . as Mr. Hoffer’s case studies show, however, resolving disputes through public trials that result in reasoned decisions is better for a democratic society than the likely violent or coercive alternatives. * The Wall Street Journal * The United States has more civil litigation than any other nation in the Western world. This book attempts to make sense of this phenomenon by examining the issue from colonial to contemporary times. Hoffer is well qualified to tackle this difficult topic. Chapters cover defamation, real estate buying/selling, slavery, labor, stock swindles (especially in railroading), divorce, civil rights, and product liability/mass tort litigation. In addition, the author traces wounded honor and personal dignity as values that have evolved over the centuries, most recently with the rise of “identity politics.” As an alternative to violence, Hoffer concludes, litigation is a useful tool. Hoffer’s study covers a vast topic in a clear and concise manner that will appeal to those interested in American law, especially historians and legal scholars. * Library Journal * Recommended: The impressive flexibility of the US tort system allows the US's legal system to evolve to produce remedies for newly recognized forms of injustice, such as race, class, and gender inequities. In this volume Hoffer (history, Univ. of Georgia) reviews key cases in US civil litigation to support his argument that the litigation reflects the economic and cultural stresses characteristic of the particular historical period in which the case litigated. . . This important, well-documented legal history provides a valuable counter to denunciations of judicial overreach by showing US courts’ willingness to recognize that the US's dynamism requires periodic reworking of such basic values as the right to privacy. * Choice Reviews * In this engaging and comprehensive survey of American history via the courtroom, legal historian Hoffer persuasively argues that intense litigation signals a period of social upheaval, 'a temporary disparity between new and old social norms.' Each chapter focuses on a cluster of case studies that illuminate a contested 'phase change' in American identity and culture. For example, he argues, real estate title cases in the colonial U.S. gave voice to mutual frustrations between yeoman farmers and a new commercial elite. Before the Civil War, fraud suits connected to slave trading illuminated increasing Southern anxiety about the future of the institution; cases in the North regarding back pay and the legality of craft unions bespoke concerns about the dignity of the individual in industrial society. The second half of the book posits that litigation helped extend the rights of the individual, as in stockholder suits against the fraudulent machinations of Gilded Age railroad financiers and consumer class action torts against corporate wrongdoing. Chapters regarding changes in divorce and the landmark civil rights lawsuits in the mid-20th century illuminate shifting paradigms in gender and race relations, respectively. This eloquent, well-organized book will particularly delight academic readers new to legal history and will give those in the legal field a greater sense of their profession’s role in shaping America’s culture and character. * Publishers Weekly * Using carefully chosen examples to illustrate the history of litigation in the United States, Peter Charles Hoffer provides a clear and readable account of how lawsuits both shape and are shaped by the social and cultural context in which they arise. The chapters range over topics such as libel and divorce through civil rights and products liability, and though each focuses on different eras in U.S. history Hoffer brings out the ways in which earlier cases resonate with more recent ones. Readers without any background in the law will find the history engaging and illuminating. -- Mark Tushnet, Harvard Law School

Author Information

Peter Charles Hoffer is Distinguished Research Professor of History at the University of Georgia and coeditor of the prizewinning series Landmark Law Cases and American Society. His nearly dozen books include The Supreme Court: An Essential History, The Historians' Paradox: The Study of History in Our Time, Brave New World: A History of Early America, Seven Fires: The Urban Infernos That Reshaped America, The Salem Witchcraft Trials: A Legal History, Roe v. Wade: The Abortion Rights Controversy in American History, and The Treason Trials of Aaron Burr.

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