Volume 3 of the new Cambridge History of Law in America, edited by Christopher Tomlins and Michael Grossberg, covers The Twentieth Century and After, but because Vol. 2 on the "long nineteenth century" covers 1800 to 1920, this volume gives us something of a short 20th century, beginning in 1920. Authors were given the latitude to set their topics in a longer time-frame, however. For example, Robert Gordon's chapter on the legal profession covers 1870-2000.
Here's the description from the press:
Volume III of the Cambridge History of Law in America covers the period from 1920 to the present, ‘the American Century’. It charts a century of legal transformations - in the state, in legal thought and education, in professional organization and life, in American federalism and governance, in domestic affairs and international relations. It shows how, politically, socially and culturally, the twentieth century was when law became ubiquitous in American life. Among the themes discussed are innovation in the disciplinary and regulatory use of law, changes wrought by the intersection of law with explosive struggles around race, gender, class and sexuality, the emergence and development of the particularly American legal discourse of ‘rights’, and the expansion of this discourse to the international arena. The main focus of this last volume of the Cambridge History of Law in America is the accelerating pace of change, change which we can be confident will continue. The Cambridge History of Law in America has been made possible by the generous support of the American Bar Foundation.
Previous posts covered Vol. 1 and Vol. 2.
Contents for Volume 3:
1. Law and state, 1920–2000: institutional growth and structural change Daniel R. Ernst
2. Legal theory and legal education, 1920–2000 William W. Fisher III
3. The American legal profession, 1870–2000 Robert W. Gordon
4. The courts, Federalism and the Federal Constitution, 1920–2000 Edward A. Purcell, Jr.
5. The litigation revolution Lawrence M. Friedman
6. Criminal justice in the United States Michael Willrich
7. Law and medicine Leslie J. Reagan
8. The Great Depression and the New Deal Barry Cushman
9. Labor’s welfare state: defining workers, constructing citizens Eileen Boris
10. Poverty law and income support: from the progressive era to the war on welfare Gwendolyn Mink, Samantha Ann Majic and Leandra Zarnow
11. The rights revolution in the twentieth century Mark Tushnet
12. Race and rights Michael J. Klarman
13. Heterosexuality as a legal regime Margot Canaday
14. Law and the environment Betsy Mendelsohn
15. Agriculture and the state, 1789–2000 Victoria Saker Woeste
16. Law and economic change during the short twentieth century John Henry Schlegel
17. The corporate economy: ideologies of regulation and antitrust, 1920–2000 Gregory A. Mark
18. Law and commercial popular culture in the twentieth-century United States Norman L. Rosenberg
19. Making law, making war, making America Mary L. Dudziak
20. Law, lawyers and empire Yves Dezalay and Bryant G. Garth.
You can read an excerpt from LAW AND THE STATE, 1920–2000: INSTITUTIONAL GROWTH AND STRUCTURAL CHANGE by DANIEL R. ERNST.