The Docket Presents “Celebrating Bob Gordon’s Taming the Past

On January 12, 2018, on a Friday afternoon in Palo Alto, California, a number of the United States’ leading legal historians converged on Stanford Law School to discuss a major new work, Taming the Past: Essays on Law in History and History in Law. They also traveled from throughout the country to celebrate the book’s…

“Lawyers Make Law?” Bob Gordon and Critical History of the Legal Profession

Editor’s Note: This is an edited transcript of remarks prepared and delivered at Stanford University’s Center for Law and History on January 12, 2018. Amalia Kessler: Well, it’s really such a pleasure to see you all here for what we have been affectionately calling BobFest. So let me just first say our dean, Liz Magill,…

Selected Works by Robert W. Gordon

Professor Robert W. Gordon is the author of dozens of books and articles.  The following is only a selective bibliography.  Readers will find a complete list of his publications on his curriculum vitae, available on his Stanford Law School faculty page. BOOKS Taming the Past: Essays on Law in History and History in Law. Cambridge…

Leaving the Fortress of Legal History Behind

“As we all know well, Gordon has done a tremendous amount to bring historiography, and particularly critical historicism, into the fortress of law and legal history….. But Gordon has also played a key role in sending traffic out of the fortress and across the moat, in bringing legal sophistication to ‘general historiography’.”

The Loyal Critic

In this “toast,” I’d like to say a few words about two of the three words in this panel’s title: Bob Gordon as mensch and Bob Gordon as theoretician. If you’re an untidy character like me, your email inbox probably has many years’ worth of mail in it. One great advantage of this is that…

Wordsmith, Theoretician, Mensch

Editor’s Note: This is an edited transcript of remarks prepared and delivered at Stanford University’s Center for Law and History on January 12, 2008. Lawrence Friedman:  Good afternoon. As you know from your program, this is obviously going to be the deepest and most philosophical of the sessions, “Wordsmith, Theoretician, Mensch.”  So my task is…