Updated Oct. 1, 2008: This course is no longer available. See The mysterious missing courses/ Part 2.
If you are curious about the American legal tradition and its roots in English common law, the UCSD history course American Legal History to 1865 (feed) is the class for you.
Professor Michael Parrish hits the highlights you’d be expecting like the Magna Carta and the U.S. Constitution, but adds lots of interesting detail in between, like the way the British colonists began modifying the British legal tradition almost immediately after coming to these shores. For example, in Britain a landowner would be entitled to damages if a large animal strayed and damaged some of his property. By contrast, in colonial times, it was the landowner’s responsibility to keep his land fenced, and thus he would not be entitled to damages in such a case.
One caveat: a number of the recordings are of poor technical quality, and almost impossible to hear. Just skip those class sessions, and pretend you played hooky from school that day.
Filed under: 5-star professors, Courses, History | Tagged: legal history, Michael Parrish
Hi, I was wondering, as you know UCSD clears it’s podcasts once the quarter is over, and I was really interested in this lecture series.
If you still have a copy, would you mind uploading it to rapidshare or another file server? Otherwise, do you know of a person/place that has a repository of all the old podcasts, that I may retrieve this from?
Many Thanks,
–Adam
Alas, I don’t know where the lectures can be found. You might try emailing the professor.
I noticed that last year there were also podcasts of Michael Parrish’s classes on Religion and Law in US history. I’m betting there is a good chance UCSD will post podcasts of his classes again in the fall.