Power and Precedent: The Role of Law in the United States

This book defines law as applied politics and examines United States politics, a government created by Founders who did not believe political parties to be necessary. The book is a course whose lectures set out a jurisprudence applicable to civil and scientific as well as common law. The thesis of the course is that an understanding of the role of precedent in the common law explains both the human condition and what has happened to United States law since the decision in Brown v. Board of Education. The use of questions and dialog within the course involves the reader in the development of a jurisprudence grounded in a philosophy of law.

Jan Ginter Deutsch is the Walton Hale Hamilton Professor Emeritus of Law and Professorial Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School. His subjects are corporations and securities regulations. His books include The Law of Corporations: What Corporate Lawyers Do (with J. Bianco) and Selling the People1s Cadillac: The Edsel and Corporate responsibility. Professor Deutsch was educated at Yale (B.A., LL.B., and Ph.D. in Political Science) with an M.A. from Cambridge.