Traces the development of criminal law in America, from the start of the constitutional era to the rise of the New Deal order.

Elizabeth Dale currently teaches history and law at the University of Florida. Her research focuses on expressions of popular sovereignty, specifically popular efforts to determine and enforce notions of right and wrong, in constitutional orders. She has written several books including the forthcoming Chicago's Trunk Murder: Law and Justice at the Turn of the Century. Her articles have been published in the Law and History Review, the American Historical Review and the Northern Illinois Law Review.

1. Criminal justice and the nation, 1789-1860; 2. Law and justice in the states, 1789-1839; 3. Law vs justice in the states, 1840-65; 4. States and nation, 1860-1900; 5. Criminal justice, 1900-35; 6. Rights and the turn to law, 1937-9.