Written by one who has long pioneered in enlarging the study of American legal history, this book defines and explores a relatively new field—the social history of law in the United States. Professor Hurst begins by setting forth some of the potential subject areas for this field, pointing up a wide range of possibilities. He proceeds to outline the development of the characteristic powers, capabilities, and limitations of the major legal agencies whose work furnishes the core of legal history. Next he offers examples from the history of law viewed in relation to other social institutions and to broadly shared values in society, treating first law, science, and technology, and then law's efforts to shape, serve, and adapt to the market and the big business corporations. In "Retrospect," his brief concluding chapter, he summarizes his views on the role and function of legal history.A major synthetic achievement, this book should be of compelling interest to social historians, historians of law, political scientists, and others concerned with the legal dimensions of social history.