Rowman & Littlefield has published Law, Science, and Technology: Historical and Social Context (May 2023), by Lawrence M. Friedman (Stanford Law School). A description from the Press:
Through a series of historical analyses, Friedman explores the relationship between the legal system and the development of modern science and technology. The scientific revolution produced major changes in culture; and these in turn led to changes in government and law. The book covers, among other topics, the transportation revolution; the camera and the entertainment industry; the “germ theory” and its influence on modern society; and the role of culture and technology in the sexual revolution.
A selection of advance praise:
Why does the law change? In a discussion that is somehow both erudite and fun to read, drawing on case studies ranging from cars to cameras to vaccines, Lawrence Friedman persuasively suggests that technological developments lead to cultural transformations, which in turn produce changes in the law. Anyone interested in the relationship between law and technology will want to read this book. -- Stuart Banner
Friedman has written a wonderful book that investigates the intertwined nature of law, science and technology, and the role played by law in a modern complex society. As is true for all Friedman’s books, he presents a social history that is accessible to lay persons as well as legal history devotees. As a reader, you are drawn in by the stories that shed light on dramatic cultural and legal change. -- Joyce Sterling
Also of note: Friedman's Personal Identity in the Modern World: A Society of Strangers, published by Rowman & Littlefield in August 2022:
In a society of strangers, there develops what can be called crimes of mobility -- forms of criminality rare in traditional societies: bigamy, the confidence game, and blackmail, for example. What they have in common is a kind of fraudulent role-playing, which the new society makes possible. This book explores the social and legal consequences of social and geographical mobility in the United States and Great Britain from the beginning of the 19th century on. Personal identity became more fluid. Lines between classes blurred. Impostors abound.A selection from the blurbs:
On a sweeping canvas that covers two centuries of legal and literary history, eminent historian Lawrence Friedman shares his observations about the power of mobility—both geographic and social—to transform personal identity. During the 19th century, the United States morphed from a collection of face-to-face local communities into an anonymous, urbanized nation in which men and, to a lesser extent, women could alter their socioeconomic status, their religion, and even their perceived race, along with their place of residence. But the potential to craft new identities also raised the disconcerting prospect that people were not who they seemed and that, beneath the veneer presented to the outside world, deviance and criminality might lurk. America and Great Britain gradually shed repressive Victorian norms in favor of “expressive individualism,” but prisons and other institutions developed for law-breakers and the poor continued to exert control. Friedman concludes with the insight that 21st-century globalization and technology have created a new type of village that sacrifices privacy for connectedness. His latest book makes an entertaining and thought-provoking read. -- Carolyn B. Ramsey
-- Karen Tani
