Paul Pruitt’s powerful collection of young lawyers’ essays on Alabama legal history

NEW FIELD, NEW CORN is an anthology of research papers that explore a range of topics from the rich legal history of the state of Alabama and its influential legal and judicial figures. Contemporary photography and mapwork are featured as well.

“Alabama legal history can be surprising. Usually, this history is identified with dominant one-party politics, slavery, racial segregation, and limited social welfare. Paul Pruitt’s collection of young lawyers’ research reveals a new field. It extends out from legal subjects, embracing new perceptions of law in society across Alabama history. The collection rests on broad research. Lawyers working in diverse fields have produced Alabama legal history that sets a new standard.”
— Tony Freyer
University Research Professor of History and Law, Emeritus, University of Alabama
Author, Hugo L. Black and the Dilemma of American Liberalism (2007), and coauthor, Democracy and Judicial Independence (1996)

“New Field, New Corn presents eight new essays on Alabama legal history from the pre-Civil War era through the Civil Rights era. These elegant and novel chapters survey a broad spectrum, from economics, race, education, and professional concerns of lawyers, to plain old legal doctrine, to show how those variables affected the state’s development. These essays reveal why we need intensive studies of American law at the state and county level in the 19th and 20th centuries. For they demonstrate that law is embedded in our culture. These invite many other studies, from the county level on up, in other states, to demonstrate how law lies at the center of nation’s history. They reaffirm my faith that there are many, many fascinating stories left to tell about our nation’s journey towards fulfilling the promises of law.”
— Alfred L. Brophy
Judge John J. Parker Distinguished Professor of Law
University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill
Author, Reparations: Pro and Con (2006) and Reconstructing the Dreamland (2002)

A later review–a Book Note in Alabama Review, Vol. 73 (April 2020), pp. 191-192–notes that although “the essays are wide-ranging in scope and subject, each seeks to assert the importance of legal history (and the value of lawyer-historians) to our understanding of Alabama’s past…. The assembled authors present a clarion call for further work in a rich field of inquiry.” In this vein, the Note concludes, “Pruitt’s collection certainly suggests a number of profitable paths by which historians and legal scholars might uncover new insights in Alabama history.”

The volume’s contents include:

• Bryan K. Fair’s Foreword: “Critiquing Our Present, Interrogating Our Past”
• Paul M. Pruitt, Jr.’s Introduction: “Alabama Legal History as a Field of Study”
• Warren Hoffman: “Developments of the Enclosure Movement in Alabama: Disrupting the Free Roaming”
• Paul Rand: “Flush Times in the Chancery: A Brief Note on the History of Equity and Trusts”
• Helen Eckinger: “The Militarization of the University of Alabama”
• Eddie Lowe: “Economic Growth in Blount County: Attorneys, Companies, and Cases”
• Mike Dodson: “Pioneers in Alabama Legal History: A Firm Understanding of the History of Alabama”
• Courtney Cooper: “A Man in a Boy’s Coat: The Evolution of Alabama’s Constitutions”
• Deirdra Drinkard: “The Uniform Beneath the Robe”
• Ellie Campbell: “The ‘Breakthrough Verdict’: Strange v. State”

A compelling new addition to the Legal History & Biography Series from Quid Pro Books.

Library-quality HARDCOVER edition: See it at such booksellers as Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, BooksAMillion, YBP Library Services, Midwest Library Service, and the Ingram Catalog.

PAPERBACK: Available at the Amazon.com general site, at Barnes & Noble, or at BooksAMillion. And at other leading retailers. Libraries (and others) may also order through YBP Library Services, Midwest Library Service, and the Ingram Catalog.

Also available in all leading eBook formats:

Amazon for Kindle.

Barnes & Noble for Nook.

Smashwords in ePUB format.

At Google Play app, and at Google Books.

Available also at Apple iTunes and iBooks bookstores (preview online), and at Kobobooks.

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CATALOGING:

ISBN 9781610273237 (hardback); list price $46.99
ISBN 9781610273084 (paperback); list price $31.99
ISBN 9781610273107 (ebook); list price $9.99
Publication date: Sept. 12, 2015
Page count: 200 pp.