Autor: Peter Charles Hoffer

The Law’s Conscience is a history of equity in Anglo-American juris-prudence from the inception of the chancellor’s court in medieval England to the recent civil rights and affirmative action decisio …

Hoffer argues for a new methodological philosophy of history that mitigates fallibility and paradox How do we know what happened in the past? We cannot go back, and no amount of historical data can e …

Beginning with the introduction of abortion law in the nineteenth century, this reader includes important documents from nearly two hundred years of debate over abortion. These legal briefs, oral arg …

History helps us understand change, provides clues to our own identity, and hones our moral sense. But history is not a stand-alone discipline. Indeed, its own history is incomplete without recogniti …

The Clamor of Lawyers explores a series of extended public pronouncements that British North American colonial lawyers crafted between 1761 and 1776. Most, though not all, were composed outside of th …

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 …

Once the dust of the Revolution settled, the problem of reconciling the erstwhile warring factions arose, and as is often the case in the aftermath of violent revolutions, the matter made its way int …

For more than two centuries, the U.S. Supreme Court has provided a battleground for nearly every controversial issue in our nations history. Now a veteran team of talented historiansincluding the edi …

The Clamor of Lawyers explores a series of extended public pronouncements that British North American colonial lawyers crafted between 1761 and 1776. Most, though not all, were composed outside of th …

An essential, rigorous, and lively introduction to the beginnings of American law.How did American colonists transform British law into their own? What were the colonies’ first legal institutions, an …

The civil rights era was a time of pervasive change in American political and social life. Among the decisive forces driving change were lawyers, who wielded the power of law to resolve competing con …

Few Supreme Court decisions have stirred up as much controversy, vitriolic debate, and even violence as Roe v. Wade in 1973. Four decades later, it remains a touchstone for the culture wars in the Un …

Daniel Webster and the Unfinished Constitution reveals Webster as the foremost constitutional lawyer of his day. Peter Charles Hoffer builds a persuasive case that Webster was more than a skilled pra …

"A fine study . . . by a prolific scholar who adeptly restores the Salem Gunpowder Raid to its rightful place in the history of the American Revolution." -New England Quarterly On April 19, …

Examining the congressional debates on antislavery petitions before the Civil War.Passed by the House of Representatives at the start of the 1836 session, the gag rule rejected all petitions against …

Honorable Mention, History Category, Professional and Scholarly Publishing Awards, Association of American Publishers Over the past half-century, historians have greatly enriched our understanding of …

The distinguished historian "does a remarkable job" with this lively and comprehensive textbook-now in a new, expanded edition (Daniel P. Kotzin, Teaching History).The Brave New World cover …

In Seward’s Law , Peter Charles Hoffer argues that William H. Seward’s legal practice in Auburn, New York, informed his theory of relational rights—a theory that demonstrated how the country could en …

In Seward’s Law, Peter Charles Hoffer argues that William H. Seward’s legal practice in Auburn, New York, informed his theory of relational rights-a theory that demonstrated how the country could end …

A lively synthesis of early American history, now in its third edition. The Brave New World covers the entire span of early American history, from 30, 000 years before Europeans landed on North Ameri …

In 1822, Denmark Vesey was found guilty of plotting an insurrection-what would have been the biggest slave uprising in U.S. history. A free man of color, he was hanged along with 34 other African Ame …

In 1822, Denmark Vesey was found guilty of plotting an insurrection-what would have been the biggest slave uprising in U.S. history. A free man of color, he was hanged along with 34 other African Ame …

The Law’s Conscience is a history of equity in Anglo-American juris-prudence from the inception of the chancellor’s court in medieval England to the recent civil rights and affirmative action decisio …

Beginning with the introduction of abortion law in the nineteenth century, this reader includes important documents from nearly two hundred years of debate over abortion. These legal briefs, oral arg …

Revolution and Regeneration is a book about the aging of the “young men of 1776, ” the men who came to adulthood with the American Revolution, found their identity merged with the new republic they h …

In the current legal climate where “everyone is an originalist, ” conventional wisdom suggests that judges merely find law, rather than make it. Orthodox common-law jurisprudence makes fidelity to th …

A history of the humble footnote and its impact on the highest court in the land In May 2022, a seismic legal event occurred as the draft majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health was leake …

The far-reaching Sedition Act of 1798 was introduced by Federalists to suppress Republican support of French revolutionaries and imposed fines and imprisonment “if any person shall write, print, utte …

Three and a half decades before the city of New York witnessed the first great battle waged by the new United States of America for its independence, rumors of a massive conspiracy among the city’s s …

Langum Prize, Honorable Mention Aaron Burr was an enigma even in his own day. Founding father and vice president, he engaged in a duel with Alexander Hamilton resulting in a murder indictment that ef …

America’s founders extolled a nation of laws, for they knew that only a fairly enforced legal system could protect liberty and property against corruption and tyranny. Nearly two and a half centuries …