Schoenbaum's The Law and Legal System of the United States, 2d

This book is a one-volume, 842-page entrée into the entire range of United States law, designed to serve the needs of interested non-lawyers, pre-law and law students, and non-U.S. lawyers and students. This work is more than an introduction despite its broad scope. The author presents full treatment of the history and development of the law, thorough discussion of many classic legal cases decided by legendary judges, such as Benjamin Cardozo, Learned Hand, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, and facilitates understanding of current judicial divides over civil rights, originalism, textualism, and other important constitutional matters. Intended as a modular, flexible tool, the book offers five perspectives of the law: (1) public law; (2) private law; (3) civil and criminal procedure; (4) legal reasoning and judicial decisionmaking; and (5) historical development.