Only the Clothes on Her Back illuminates the ways in which women, men of color, and poor people used textiles as a form of property that enabled them to gain access to the legal system and to exercise political power.

Virginia men of law constituted one of the first learned professions in colonial America, and Virginia legal culture had an important and lasting impact on American political institutions and jurisprudence. Exploring the book collections of these Virginians therefore offers insight into the history of the book and the intellectual history of early America. It also addresses essential questions of how English culture migrated to the American colonies and was transformed into a distinctive American culture. Focusing on the law books that colonial Virginians acquired, how they used them, and how they eventually produced a native-grown legal literature, this collection explores the law and intellectual culture of the Commonwealth and reveals the origins of a distinctively Virginian legal literature. The contributors argue that understanding the development of early Virginia legal history—as shown through these book collections—not only illuminates important aspects of Virginia’s history and culture; it also underlies a thorough understanding of colonial and revolutionary American history and culture.

In Signposts, Sally E. Hadden and Patricia Hagler Minter have assembled seventeen essays, by both established and rising scholars, that showcase new directions in southern legal history across a wide range of topics, time periods, and locales. The essays will inspire today's scholars to dig even more deeply into the southern legal heritage, in much the same way that David Bodenhamer and James Ely's seminal 1984 work, Ambivalent Legacy, inspired an earlier generation to take up the study of southern legal history. Contributors to Signposts explore a wide range of subjects related to southern constitutional and legal thought, including real and personal property, civil rights, higher education, gender, secession, reapportionment, prohibition, lynching, legal institutions such as the grand jury, and conflicts between bench and bar. A number of the essayists are concerned with transatlantic connections to southern law and with marginalized groups such as women and native peoples. Taken together, the essays in Signposts show us that understanding how law changes over time is essential to understanding the history of the South. Contributors: Alfred L. Brophy, Lisa Lindquist Dorr, Laura F. Edwards, James W. Ely Jr., Tim Alan Garrison, Sally E. Hadden, Roman J. Hoyos, Thomas N. Ingersoll, Jessica K. Lowe, Patricia Hagler Minter, Cynthia Nicoletti, Susan Richbourg Parker, Christopher W. Schmidt, Jennifer M. Spear, Christopher R. Waldrep, Peter Wallenstein, Charles L. Zelden.

A Colonial Southern Bookshelf studies popular books among southern readers in eighteenth-century America. From booksellers’ lists and sale catalogs, Richard Beale Davis’s study focuses on three key groups of literature: books in law, politics, and history; books on religious topics; and belles lettres. His examination of the colonial southern library suggests many revealing conclusions: persons of many social and economic levels owned and read books; literacy was more widespread than many historians have perceived; the vast majority of the books in southern libraries were published in England and Europe; and colonial newspapers constituted an important influence on cultural tastes. A Colonial Southern Bookshelf takes a historical look at the popular reading lists of the time and what they say about society in eighteenth-century America. The Georgia Open History Library has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this collection, do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The Second Amendment, by far the most controversial amendment to the US Constitution, will soon celebrate its 225th anniversary. Yet, despite the amount of ink spilled over this controversy, the debate continues on into the 21st century. Initially written with a view towards protecting the nascent nation from more powerful enemies and preventing the tyranny experienced during the final years of British rule, the Second Amendment has since become central to discussions about the balance between security and freedom. It features in election contests and informs cultural discussions about race and gender. This book seeks to broaden the discussion. It situates discussion about gun controls within contemporary debates about citizenship, culture, philosophy and foreign policy as well as in the more familiar terrain of politics and history. It features experts on the Constitution as well as chapters discussing the symbolic importance of Annie Oakley, the role of firearms in race, and filmic representations of armed Hispanic girl gangs. It asks about the morality of gun controls and of not imposing them. The collection presents a balanced view between those who favour more gun controls and those who would prefer fewer of them. It is infused with the belief that through honest and open debate the often bitter cultural divide on the Second Amendment can be overcome and real progress made. It contains a diverse range of perspectives including, uniquely, a European perspective on this most American of issues.