The Federal Judicial Center has just published Approaches to Federal Judicial History, edited by Gautham Rao, Winston Bowman and Clara Altman and downloadable here. As Rao explains in his introduction:This volume presents recent scholarship on the history of the federal court system. It builds on the symposium “The Federal Courts in American Historiography,” which convened at the Federal Judicial Center in the spring of 2016. The main historical themes of that scholarly meeting and of this volume are the practices and importance of the lower federal courts, the relationship between district and circuit courts and the Supreme Court, and the broader role of the federal court system in American economy and society.Here’s the TOC:
Introduction by Gautham Rao
Part I: Historicizing the Judicial Branch
1. The Indefinite Article: Historicizing the Judicial Branch by Winston Bowman
2. The Handmaid of Justice: Power and Procedure in the Federal Courts by Kellen Funk
3. Slavery and Emancipation in the Federal Courts, by Aaron Hall
4. Writing a Court-Centered History of Administrative Governance by Joanna L. Grisinger
Part II: The Role of Lower-Court Histories
5. Ordained and Established: The Role of Lower-Court Histories by Jake Kobrick
6. All Rise: The Prospects and Challenges of Lower Federal Judicial Biography by Charles L Zelden
7. The Federal Courts and Criminal Justice by Sara Mayeux
--Dan Ernst
