Many people reading this book will be law students, but even for those who aren't, Kermit Hall's collection is a terrific resource for readers of history and politics. In a real sense, if you're looking for a "road map" to see how America got to where it is, the "legal" history in many respects trumps military, political and economic histories. Here you'll find ll the usual suspects - Magna Charta, the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the Colonial Charters, the American Revolution, Dred Scott, Griswald, Miranda, Roe v. Wade. Expect the next edition to carry Bush v. Gore.

This is a terrific book. I use it for teaching Law & Public Policy to political science masters students. The authors have done a great job winnowing the dusty tomes of legal history to the essential nuggets. In addition to the classics, they've selected some hilarious "voice of the people" sources one might never come across in standard legal history texts. I really enjoy this book!

the essays contained within Finkelman's books are well written and well argued, just watch out because they contain an anti-Brown slant. These works are far from impartial and for a history text, some of them don't follow the traditional road to research of primary source, secondary, and so and so forth. The text is excellent if are looking to read good essays, but they are not impartial.

Unlike most historians who consider slavery as an unfortunate sidebar to the ideological and political foundations of America, Finkelman boldy places slavery at the center of America's founding. Beginning with the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and continuing through to Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, his views on race and slavery, and his relationship to a woman enslaved to him (Sally Hemings), Finkelman makes a very valid argument that the "traditional" political leadership of the Jeffersonian era was perpetually - not occasionally - in debate about the issue of slavery, with most of those leaders falling on the pro-slavery side of the argument. The real value of the book is Finkelman's two chapters on Jefferson, whose political influence and opinion where nearly as revered by his peers as they are by contemporary early American historians. While noted historians such as Dumas Malone, Joseph Ellis, and Merrill Peterson have stretched the bounds of interpretation of the few seemingly anti-slavery comments Jefferson made or wrote in order to cast him as the unfortunate victim of an institution which he disliked, Finkelman is one of the first to put all of Jefferson's views on slavery and race - the few that seem anti-slavery, the majority that are anti-black, all of which are contradictory - together in one place, IN THEIR PROPER CONTEXT, up for public scrutiny. For anyone wanting an approach to understanding Jefferson's true views on slavery - based on the historical evidence - this is the book to start and, for now, end with. I didn't give it five stars because its focus is kind of narrow, but that could be because Finkelman has done such a great job of narrowing his focus and successfully arguing his understanding of "Race and Liberty in the Age of Jefferson."