The Common Law of Colonial America

“In a rigorous and original analysis, Nelson’s The Common Law in Colonial America brings to life the complex and fascinating origins of American law. As Nelson quite brilliantly reveals, the early colonists struggled to make sense of law, religion, sex, crime, and economics in a harsh, challenging and often forbidding New World.”–Geoffrey R. Stone, author of Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime: From the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War onTerrorism”Nelson’s conception of The Common Law in Colonial America is magisterial, and only he has the knowledge and capacity to produce a synthesis at such length and depth. His first volume brilliantly sums up what the first generation of historically trained scholars of early American law have learned, and places it in an analytical context that is easy to comprehend, yet subtle and original.“–Stanley N. Katz, coeditor of Colonial America: Essays inPolitics and Social Development”Nelson’s The Common Law in Colonial America begins a sweeping multi-volume revision of the way we understand our nation’s legal foundations. With exhaustive research and the perspective of a master historian and legal scholar, he demonstrates how the earliest years of settlement shaped the future of American law and bequeathed to us a system that accommodates diversity within a common commitment to the basic concepts of the rule of law.“–David T.Konig, author of Law and Society in Puritan Massachusetts: Essex County, 1629-1692”In his innovative analysis of legal culture in the early colonies, Nelson boldly discards the framework of reception in favor of intercolonial comparison. The result is a thoroughly researched compendium of case law that reveals how the rule of law evolved as a check on arbitrary magisterial power. It should prove valuable to both legal and social historians.“–Marylynn Salmon, author of Women and the Law of Property in Early America”In a rigorous and original analysis, Nelson’s The Common Law in Colonial America brings to life the complex and fascinating origins of American law. As Nelson quite brilliantly reveals, the early colonists struggled to make sense of law, religion, sex, crime, and economics in a harsh, challenging and often forbidding New World.“–Geoffrey R. Stone, author of Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime: From the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War onTerrorism”Nelson’s conception of The Common Law in Colonial America is magisterial, and only he has the knowledge and capacity to produce a synthesis at such length and depth. His first volume brilliantly sums up what the first generation of historically trained scholars of early American law have learned, and places it in an analytical context that is easy to comprehend, yet subtle and original.“–Stanley N. Katz, coeditor of Colonial America: Essays inPolitics and Social Development”Nelson’s The Common Law in Colonial America begins a sweeping multi-volume revision of the way we understand our nation’s legal foundations. With exhaustive research and the perspective of a master historian and legal scholar, he demonstrates how the earliest years of settlement shaped the future of American law and bequeathed to us a system that accommodates diversity within a common commitment to the basic concepts of the rule of law.“–David T.Konig, author of Law and Society in Puritan Massachusetts: Essex County, 1629-1692”In his innovative analysis of legal culture in the early colonies, Nelson boldly discards the framework of reception in favor of intercolonial comparison. The result is a thoroughly researched compendium of case law that reveals how the rule of law evolved as a check on arbitrary magisterial power. It should prove valuable to both legal and social historians.“–Marylynn Salmon, author of Women and the Law of Property in Early America

William E. Nelson is Edward Weinfeld Professor of Law and Professor of History at New York University. He has been writing and teaching in the field of American legal history for over forty years.