Simone Weil: "It is the aim of public life to arrange that all forms of power are entrusted, so far as possible, to men who effectively consent to be bound by the obligation towards all human beings which lies upon everyone, and who understand the obligation.  Law is the totality of permanent provisions for making this aim effective."  [Selected Essays (Oxford University Press, 1962)]

Somewhat consistent with that philosophical principle, the notion of obligation has played a central role in our system of justice, especially civil justice.  Focusing on that general historical and jurisprudential point, David Ibbetson (a lecturer in law at Oxford University) has just published A Historical Introduction to the Law of Obligations (Oxford University Press, 2000) (ISBN: 019876412X).  In this work, the author discusses the origins of today's notions of the law of contract, tort, and unjust enrichment.

Ibbetson examines the history of the English law of obligations – including obligations in Roman Law and the medieval law of contract – along with the structural foundations of the notion.  The book's 16 chapters also review the substantive law of torts and contract, the rise of the action of assumpsit, the rise and expansion of the tort of negligence, the rise and decline ofthe Will Theory, the legal regulation of contractual fairness, and the role and rule of the doctrine of unjust enrichment.

For a book of related interest, see E. Allan Farnsworth's Changing Your Mind: The Law of Regretted Decisions (Yale University Press, 1999), reviewed in Books-on-Law by Dennis Patterson.

Was it Pierre Schlag – that outlaw jurisprude –  who said that "it no longer seems possible to believe in the law"?  Maybe.  For that matter, he may have even been yet more paradoxical: "We . . . live in a culture in which it is no longer possible to believe in the law and not yet possible not to believe in the law."  If  Schlag did not say that, he might as well have.  After all, is that not part of the post-modern predicament?  But how did we arrive as this point, this loss of faith in the law?

Enter Stephen M. Feldman with his American Legal Thought from Premodernism to Postmodernism An Intellectual Voyage  (Oxford University Press, 2000) (ISBN: 0195109678). 

This tract surveys and critiques some two centuries of American legal thought and its move from  pre-modernism to modernism and into post-modernism.  The book is an "intellectual voyage" through these three intellectual periods.  But it is a voyage defined by two broad, interrelated themes: jurisprudential foundations and the notion of progress.

Professor Feldman posits that much of American legal thought has grappled with the problem of identifying the foundations of the American judicial system and judicial decision making.  The various ideas of jurisprudential foundations, he maintains, are closely tied to shifting notions of progress – including assumptions about the possibility of progress, and hopes about how law might contribute to it.

This intellectual history, which is provocative at times, is set out in six chapters and addresses topics such as natural law and republican government, the onset of positivism, Langdellian legal science, American legal realism, and various forms of modern and post-modern jurisprudence.

Last September, Professor Feldman reviewed Lawrence Friedman's The Horizontal Society (Yale, 1999) for Books-on-Law.  His previous publications include Please Don't Wish Me a Merry Christmas: A Critical History of the Separation of Church and State (New York University Press, 1997).

In April, the following reviews are slated to appear, among others:

• Ronald K.L. Collins, reviewing Frederick & Steven Barthelme, Double Down: Reflections on Gambling and Loss (Houghton Mifflin, 1999)
• Lynne N. Henderson, reviewing Susan Bandes, editor, The Passions of Law (New York University Press, 2000)
• Ramona Ripston, reviewing David J. Langum, William M. Kunstler: The Most Hated Lawyer in America (New York University Press, 1999)
• Eric J. Segall, reviewing Stephen E. Gottlieb, Morality Imposed: The Rehnquist Court and the State of Liberty in America (New York University Press, 2000)
• Kellye Y. Testy, reviewing F.H. Buckley, The Rise and Fall of Freedom of Contract (Duke University Press, 1999)

Ronald K.L. Collins & David M. Skover, Editors, Books-on-Law

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JURIST: Books-on-Law™ is edited by Ronald K.L. Collins and David M. Skover of the Seattle University School of Law.

Board of Editorial Consultants: Raj Bhala, George Washington University Law School; Miriam Galston, George Washington University Law School; Kermit Hall, Ohio State University College of Law; Yale Kamisar, University of Michigan Law School; Lisa G. Lerman, Catholic University of America School of Law; David M. O’Brien, University of Virginia Department of Government and Foreign Affairs; Judith Resnik, Yale Law School; Edwin L. Rubin, University of Pennsylvania Law School; Steven H. Shriffrin, Cornell Law School; Nadine Strossen, New York Law School; David B. Wilkins, Harvard Law School.

Administrative Assistant for Books-on-Law: Ms. Nancy Ammons
Technical Assistant for Books-on-Law: Steven Pacillio, Esq.

© Ronald K.L. Collins and David Skover, 2000.