DISMANTLING AMERICAN COMMON LAW LIBERTY AND JUSTICE IN OUR TRANSFORMED COURTS

The American law system has experienced a quiet revolution that has gone largely unnoticed by political scientists and legal scholars. The change that has occurred-the abandonment of the common law foundation on which the American judicial system was built-has important consequences for democratic politics in the United States and abroad. Dismantling American Common Law: Liberty and Justice in Our Transformed Courts tracks the development of American common law through historical and quantitative analysis and provides a philosophical inquiry of its founding. Author Kyle Scott seeks to reclaim this lost tradition of common law, which was vital as a legitimizing force and consensus-building mechanism at the American founding, and will grow in importance for newly democratizing nations around the world.

About the Author:
Kyle Scott is assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of North Florida