Magistrates and Pioneers: Essays in the History of American Law

2011. ISBN-13: 9781616191283; ISBN-10: 1616191287. Billings, Warren M. Magistrates and Pioneers: Essays in the History of American Law. Foreword by Mark F. Fernandez. Clark: The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd., 2011. xix, 460 pp. ISBN-13: 9781616191283; ISBN-10: 1616191287. Paperback. New. $49.95 * Magistrates and Pioneers collects eighteen essays (five of which are new) by the historian Warren M. Billings. They address the main areas of his research, nineteenth century Louisiana and seventeenth century Virginia. From Opechancanough, a seventeenth-century Indian chief to Sir William Berkeley, colonial governor of Virginia, to Edward Livingston, coauthor of Louisiana's first civil code, to the legendary Louisiana Governor and U.S. Senator Huey Long, Billings brings to life the forces behind the legal development of these two historically distinctive states. Many of these are classic essays, all are essential to students of American legal history. Warren M. Billings is Distinguished Professor of History, Emeritus, at the University of New Orleans. He is a graduate of the College of William and Mary and has a Ph.D. in early American history from Northern Illinois University. Currently, he is Visiting Professor of Law at the William and Mary Law School. Billings is the author or editor of numerous titles, including A Little Parliament: The General Assembly of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century, A Law Unto Itself?: Essays in the New Louisiana Legal History, The Papers of Sir William Berkeley, and Sir William Berkeley and the Forging of Colonial Virginia, which received the Virginia Historical Society's Richard Slatten award for excellence in Virginia biography. "Few scholars match Warren Billings for the depth and integrity of their research, or the elegance of their prose. These essays, the fruits of four decades of immersion in technically difficult archives and spanning four centuries of Virginia and Louisiana history, gracefully connect often arcane legal processes to the larger cultures in which they were situated. Even scholars well conversant with his work will benefit from having this selection of Billings' essays gathered in a single place. The lead essay, a charming and deeply humane scholarly autobiography, adds a grace-note to a volume rich in erudition and learning. Scholars of southern history especially will find much to savor in this supe.