Edward A. Purcell Jr.

Joseph Solomon Distinguished
Professor of Law

Publications by Professor Purcell

BOOKS

Originalism, Federalism, and the American Constitutional Enterprise: An Historical
Inquiry (Yale University Press, 2007)

Brandeis and the Progressive Constitution: Erie, the Judicial Power, and the Politics of the Federal Courts in Twentieth-Century America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000.

Litigation & Inequality: Federal Diversity Jurisdiction in Industrial America, 1870–1958. Oxford University Press, 1992.

The Crisis of Democratic Theory: Scientific Naturalism & the Problem of Value. University Press of Kentucky, 1973.

 BOOK CHAPTERS
“The Supreme Court and International Law, 1901-1945: Historical Commentary,” in David L. Sloss, Michael D. Ramsey and William S. Dodge, eds., The U.S. Supreme Court and International Law: Continuity or Change? (Cambridge University Press, 2011), 285-313

“Comment on Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain” in David L. Sloss, Michael D. Ramsey and William S. Dodge, eds., The U.S. Supreme Court and International Law: Continuity or Change? (Cambridge University Press, 2011), 499-504

“Some Horwitzian Themes in the Law and History of the Federal Courts,” in Daniel W. Hamilton and Alfred L. Brophy, eds., Transformations in American Legal History: Law, Ideology, and Methods–Essays in Honor of Morton J. Horwitz (Harvard University Press, 2010), Vol. 2, 271-286

“The Story of Michigan v. Long: Supreme Court Review and the Workings of American Federalism,” in Judith Resnik and Vicki C. Jackson, eds., Federal Courts Stories (Foundation Press, 2009), 115-139

“The Courts, Federalism, and the Federal Constitution: 1920-2000,” in Christopher Tomlins and Michael Grossberg, eds., The Cambridge History of Law in America, (Cambridge University Press, 2008), Vol. 3, 127-174.

“Progressive Lawyering: An Historical Overview,” in Claire Dalton, ed., Progressive Lawyering, Globalization and Markets: Rethinking Ideology and Strategy (William S. Hein & Co., 2007), 7-22

“The Story of Erie: How Litigants, Lawyers, Judges, Politics, and Social Change Reshape the Law,” in Kevin M. Clermont, ed., Civil Procedure Stories
(Foundation Press, 2004), 21 – 74
- Second Edition, revised (2008), 21 – 79

“The Action Was Outside the Courts: Consumer Injuries and the Uses of Contract in the United States, 1875–1945.” In Private Law and Social Inequality in the Industrial Age: Comparing Legal Cultures in Britain, France, Germany, and the United States, at 505–535, edited by W. Steinmetz. Oxford University Press, 2000.

“Violence and Social Change: The Homestead Strike.”  In  Present in the Past: Source Problems in American History, at 259–264, edited by A. Rappaport & R.P. Traina. MacMillan, 1972.

ARTICLES AND REVIEW ESSAYS

“Barry Friedman’s The Will of the People: Probing the Dynamics and Uncertainties of American Constitutionalism,” 2010 Michigan State Law Review 663

“Ex parte Young and the Transformation of the Federal Courts, 1890-1917,” 40 University of Toledo Law Review 931 (2009)

“Naming and Blaming: The Case of ‘The Rehnquist Court’,” 37 Reviews in American History 440 (2009)

“The Class Action Fairness Act in Perspective: The Old and the New in Federal Jurisdictional Reform,” 156 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 1823 (2008)

"Evolving Understandings of American Federalism: Some Shifting Parameters," (Symposium: From Warren to Rehnquist and Beyond: Federalism as Theory, Doctrine, Practice, and Instrument), 50 New York Law School Law Review 635-698 (2005-2006).

"The Particularly Dubious Case of Hans v. Louisiana: An Essay on Law, Race, History, and “Federal Courts,” 81 North Carolina Law Review 1927–2059 (2003).

"Caseload Burdens and Jurisdictional Limitations: Some Observations from the History of the Federal Courts,"  46 New York Law School Law Review 7–28 (2002–2003).

"On the Complexity of 'Ideas in America': Origins and Achievements of the Classical Age of Pragmatism," (A review of Louis Menand’s “The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America”), 27 Law & Social Inquiry 967–999 (2002).

“The New Deal ‘Constitutional Revolution’ as an Historical Problem,” 78 Virginia Quarterly Review 238 (2002)

“Brandeis, Erie, and the New Deal ‘Constitutional Revolution.’” 26 Journal of Supreme Court History 257–278 (2001).

“Reconsidering the Frankfurterian Paradigm: Reflections on Histories of Lower Federal Courts.” 24 Law & Social Inquiry 679–750 (1999).

“Learned Hand: The Jurisprudential Trajectory of an Old Progressive.” Book Review of Learned Hand: The Man and The Judge, by Gerald Gunther. 43 Buffalo Law Review 873–926 (1995).

“Rethinking Constitutional Change." 80 Virginia Law Review 277–290 (1994).

“Geography as a Litigation Weapon: Consumers, Forum-Selection Clauses, and the Rehnquist Court.” 40 UCLA Law Review 423–515(1992).

“Social Thought,” 35 American Quarterly 80 (1983)

“The Professionalization of Philosophy,” 7 Reviews in American History 51 (1979)

“Alexander M. Bickel and the Post-Realist Constitution.” 11 Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review 521–564 (1976).

“Service Intellectuals and the Politics of ‘Science’,” 15 History of Education Quarterly 97 (1975)

“Brandeis and the Democratic Vision,” 1 Reviews in American History 253 (1973)

“American Jurisprudence Between the Wars: Legal Realism and the Crisis of Democratic Theory,” 75 American Historical Review 424 (1969)

“Ideas and Interests: Businessmen and the Interstate Commerce Act,” 54 Journal of American History 561 (1967) 

Encyclopedia and Dictionary Entries:

“Erie v. Tompkins,” The Encyclopedia of American Federalism, ed. Ellis Katz et al. (forthcoming)

“Henry M. Hart, Jr.,” The Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law, ed. Roger K. Newman (Yale University Press, 2009), 255 – 56.

“Consensus” in A Company to American Thought, ed. Richard Wightman Fox and James T. Kloppenberg (Blackwell, 1995), 140

“Bennett Champ Clark,” Dictionary of American Biography, Supp. Vol. 5 (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1977) 113.

“Dudley Field Malone,” Dictionary of American Biography, Supp. Vol. 4 (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1977) 541.

“Martin Conboy,” Dictionary of American Biography, Supp. Vol. 3 (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1973) 180 

 BOOK REVIEWS

Book Review of John I. Esposito's Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam, 227 New York Law Journal 2 (June 7, 2002).

Book Review of Louis Menand’s The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America, H-law, H-New Reviews, April 2002.

Book Review of Richard C. Cortner's Civil Rights and Public Accommodations: the Heart of Atlanta Motel and McClung Cases, 107 The American Historical Review 248–249 (2002).

Book Review of The Supreme Court under Edward Douglass White, 1910–1921, by Walter F. Pratt, Jr. 106 American Historical Review 588–589 (2001).

Book Review of Judging Jehovah’s Witnesses: Religious Persecution and the Dawn of the Rights Revolution, by Shawn Francis Peter. 224 New York Law Journal 2 (July 28, 2000).

Book Review of Shifting the Blame: Literature, Law, and the Theory of Accidents in Nineteenth-Century America, by Nan Goodman. 220 New York Law Journal 2 (November 3, 1998).

Book Review of The Strange Career of Legal Liberalism, by Laura Kalman. 102 American Historical Review 1264 (1997).

Book Review of Reclaiming the Federal Courts, by Larry W. Yackle. 15 Law and History Review 206–208 (1997).

Book Review of American Legal Realism and Empirical Social Science, by John Henry Schlegel. 83 Journal of American History 254–255 (1996).

Book Review of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: Law and the Inner Self, by Edward White. 61 Journal of Southern History 620–623 (1995).

Book Review of The Constitution Besieged, by Howard Gillman. 81 Journal of American History 750–751 (1994).

Book Review of Legal Hermeneutics: History, Theory and Practice, edited by G. Leyh. 79 Journal of American History 1567 (1993).

“The System of Corporate Diversity Litigation: Method and Implications.” 12(1) In Brief 13 (Spring 1993).

Book Review of Earl Warren: A Public Life, by G. Edward White. 70 The Journal of American History 201–202 (1983).

Book Review of Furious Fancies: American Political Thought in the Post-Liberal Era, by Philip Abbott. 68 Journal of American History 443–444 (1981).

Book Review of From the Diaries of Felix Frankfurter, by Joseph P. Lash. 49 New England Quarterly 314–317 (1976).

Book Review of Karl Llewellyn and the Realist Movement, by William Twining. 19 American Journal of Legal History 240 (1975).

Book Review of Roscoe Pound: Philosopher of Law, by David Wigdor. 48 New England Quarterly 298–300 (1974).

Book Review of Constitutional Change: Amendment Politics and Supreme Court Litigation Since 1900, by Clement E. Vose. 17 American Journal of Legal History 393 (1973).

Book Review of The Modern Supreme Court by Robert C. McCloskey. 58 The American Historical Review 180–181 (1973).