American Legal Theory

The essays Professor Summers has brought together in this book consist of various authentic and representative formulations and applications of the dominant general theory of law and its use in the United States during the middle decades of the 20th century. The book includes a number of major contributions that are critical of that theory. The contributors are: The path of the law, Oliver Wendell Homes Jr. Force and coercion; Logical method and law, John Dewey. The need of a sociological jurisprudence; Mechanical jurisprudence; The possibility of a measure of values, Roscoe Pound. What is the law, Joseph W. Binham. A return to stare decisis, Herman Oliphant. A realistic jurisprudence-the next step; The normative, the legal, and the law-jobs: the problem of juristic method, K.N. Lewellyn. The problems of a functional jurisprudence, Felix S. Cohen. The causes of popular dissatisfaction with the administration of justice, Roscoe Pound. The judiciality of minimum-wage legislation, Thomas Red Powell. An institutional approach to the law of commercial banking, Underhill Moore and Theodore S. Hope Jr. Through title to contract and a bit beyond, K.N. Llewellyn. Williston on contracts; The logical and legal bases of the conflict of laws, Walter Wheeler Cook. American legal realism, L.L. Fuller. Legal rules: their function in the process of decision, John Dickenson. Some rationalism about realism, Hermann Kantorwicz. Pragmatic instumentalism in twentieth century American legal thought-a synthesis and critique of our dominant general theory about law and its use.