Upcoming Publications

This series aims to publish the highest quality work in legal history by both junior and senior scholars. Our goal is to produce monographs that take a variety of methodological and theoretical approaches, but always with respect for historical and legal change. The series is dedicated to the understanding of law as both a product of and contributor to history.

The Dreadful Word Speech Crime and Polite Gentlemen in Massachusetts, 1690–1776

Kristin A. Olbertson

Kristin A. Olbertson. Cambridge University Press (March 2022). This book, the first comprehensive study of criminal speech in eighteenth-century New England, traces how the criminalization, prosecution, and punishment of speech offenses in Massachusetts helped to establish and legitimate a social and cultural regime of politeness. Read More