Tort Law in America

This history of tort law in America looks at how the subject has been conceptualized, pointing out why changes in rules occurred, and who did the changing. Widely regarded as a standard in the field, G. Edward White's Tort Law in America is a concise and accessible history of the way legal scholars and judges have conceptualized the subject of torts, the reasons why changes in certain rules and doctrines have occured, and the people who brought about these changes. Now in an expanded edition, Tort Law in America contains two new chapters - covering developments in American tort law over the past fifteen years - and a new preface. White approaches his subject from four perspectives: intellectual history, the sociology of knowledge, the phenomenon of professionalization in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in America, and the recurrent concerns of tort law since its emergence as a discreet field. He puts the intellectual history of this unique branch of law into a general picture of philosophy, sociology, and literature in what is not only a major work of legal scholarship but a tour de force for anyone interested in American intellectual history.