This essay was presented at a conference recognizing the centennial of the publication of Charles Beard’s An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution. It advances two arguments. The first is that Beard’s work is an early example of what I am calling “Progressive historiography,” a perspective that dominated the American historical profession from the early twentieth century through the 1960s, and which had certain defining characteristics, which are set forth in the essay. The second is that the principal explanation for why Progressive historiography retained its influence for so long is that it was a version of “winners history,” portraying the course of American civilization as a series of contests between entrenched elites and advocates of political, economic, and social leveling, all of which were eventually resolved in favor of the levelers. As such Progressive historiography simultaneously contained a critical posture toward established powerholders and an optimistic spin on the course of history that made it intuitively attractive to many persons entering the historical profession in the twentieth century.
Supreme Court opinions involving race and the jury invariably open with the Fourteenth Amendment, the Civil Rights Act of 1875, or landmark cases like...
At first blush, the debate between Stanley Fish and Ronald Dworkin that took place over the course of the 1980s and early 90s seems to have produced...
This chapter examines the intellectual and social contexts in which the American Law Institute (ALI) has operated and how they have influenced the...
The conventional wisdom is that the Commander-in-Chief Clause arms the President with a panoply of martial powers. By some lights, the Clause not only...
Sandy Levinson has always taken secession arguments seriously. This is, in my eyes, one of his great virtues. There are very few scholars who would be...
IN DECEMBER, 1999, after William E. Jackson's death, members of his family found, in a closet of his Manhattan apartment, a folder labeled “Roosevelt...
This paper, prepared for the 2023 Clifford Symposium on “New Torts” at DePaul Law School, addresses the tort of offensive battery. This is an ancient...
Analysis based on Hohfeld’s analytical system shows that liability rules, as defined by Guido Calabresi and A. Douglas Melamed, are a false category...
Co authoring saved me. Literally. But for the fact that my senior colleagues at UCLA did not care whether I ever wrote anything sole authored, I don...
After reading “Four Fragments,” I returned to the journal I kept as a requirement of Dirk’s course. There, in the very first entry dated February 6...
For two surreal days this week, I sat next to the family of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson during hearings on her nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court...
In Soccer in American Culture: The Beautiful Game's Struggle for Status, G. Edward White seeks to answer two questions. The first is why the sport of...
This symposium about the future of legal pedagogy could not be more timely. Its four thought-provoking papers raise a constellation of questions about...
This Essay reports the first comprehensive network analysis of legal scholars connected through co-authorship. If legal scholarship was ever a...