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History In The American Juridical Field: Narrative, Justification, And Explanation, Christopher Tomlins

Christopher Tomlins

Law in the contemporary United States has achieved unchallenged ascendancy as the principal arena and discourse for decisionmaking in social and political affairs. Law's capacity to dominate in such decisionmaking is largely dependent on popular confidence in the legitimacy and efficacy of the rules it produces. Legitimacy is in turn grounded upon the repeated invocation over time of foundational values associated with the juridical form: law's objectivity in application (no one is above the law), universality in implementation (one law for all), and neutrality in outcome (the law does not take sides). Together, these values compose what I shall call …