'Journal of Legal History' publishes Rose article

An article by Professor Jonathan Rose, a Willard H. Pedrick Distinguished Research Scholar at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, “Studying the Past: The Nature and Development of Legal History as an Academic Discipline,” was published in The Journal of Legal History.

This article pursues two themes, first arguing that there is a commonality between the general interest in the past, the interest of historians, and the interest of legal historians, and then showing that several ideas about the past commonly appear in all three contexts. The article reviews the initial study of the past and the emergence of history and legal history in academia, and explores the various reasons early historians and later academic historians and legal historians studied the past, and the different ways in which they used it.

Rose then pursues in more detail the development of Anglo-American legal history as a scholarly tradition, identifying three types of academic legal history: classical, liberal, and critical, and discussing their natures and different uses of the past. Finally, the article explores the substantial legal history scholarship and its relevance to scholars who are not legal historians.

To read the full article, click here.

After spending most of his career focusing on antitrust, regulation and legal ethics, Rose changed direction. His primary scholarly interests now involve medieval and early modern English legal history, and his research focuses on the history and regulation of the legal profession and the operation of the medieval legal system. Rose has also written on early defamation law, medieval prisons, and the historiography of legal history.

Janie Magruder, Jane.Magruder@asu.edu
(480) 727-9052
Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law