'Wilf has unearthed and brought to life an entire underground culture of popular lawmaking in revolutionary America: crowds, juries, defendants, townsmen, and artisans, who 'imagined' the contours of a dramatically different legal system from the one they were used to, who made law in their own popular idiom and fashioned it to their own purposes. This is brilliant, original legal-cultural ... Read morehistory, told with lucidity and grace.' Robert Gordon, Yale University 'Law's Imagined Republic is a brilliant and original portrayal of the emergence of law as the focus of struggles over legitimacy during the American revolutionary era. In Steven Wilf's hands, however, both the content and the rituals of law are being constantly contested by a mobilized populous ready to imagine different legal norms. Drawing on the rich materials of contemporary criminal trials and elaborate popular commentary through newspapers, pamphlets, and ballads, Wilf shows how legal discourse comes to occupy a central place in the American cultural imagination.' Morton J. Horwitz, Harvard Law School 'Steven Wilf's Law's Imagined Republic is a highly provocative, inventive, and fascinating analysis of the importance of the popular discourse and practice of law-making and law-interpreting during the American Revolution. His account of the centrality of popular contributions to the culture of the law in America is thoughtful and compelling, and his efforts to bridge law and literature fresh and enjoyable.' Michael Meranze, University of California, Los Angeles Show Less