The Turn to Process
American Legal, Political, and Economic Thought, 1870–1970

Explores the massive reorientation of American legal, political, and economic thinking from truths to methods between 1870 and 1970.

Kunal M. Parker (Author)

9781009335225, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 16 November 2023

338 pages
23.5 x 16 x 2.5 cm, 0.651 kg

'This work is a sweeping intellectual history of great ambition. Spanning the period between 1870 and 1970, the book draws on a remarkable depth of erudition to argue that American thought leaders across the domains of law, politics, and economics responded to the challenges of modernism by embracing methods, procedures, and processes. By converting substantive truths into procedural techniques, these scholars were able to establish forms of disciplinary authority that were immune to the corrosive effects of the modernist predilection for subjecting truth to historical and psychological critique. Grand in scope, Parker's book also shines in its illuminating close readings, which bring to light the surprising parallels between seemingly quite distinct textual traditions. In all these respects, The Turn to Process is an important contribution that promises significantly to reshape the boundaries of scholarly debate across a range of disciplines.' Amalia D. Kessler, Balkinization

In The Turn to Process, Kunal M. Parker explores the massive reorientation of American legal, political, and economic thinking between 1870 and 1970. Over this period, American conceptions of law, democracy, and markets went from being oriented around truths, ends, and foundations to being oriented around methods, processes, and techniques. No longer viewed as founded in justice and morality, law became a way of doing things centered around legal procedure. Shedding its foundations in the 'people,' democracy became a technique of governance consisting of an endless process of interacting groups. Liberating themselves from the truths of labor, markets and market actors became intellectual and political techniques without necessary grounding in the reality of human behavior. Contrasting nineteenth and twentieth century legal, political, and economic thought, this book situates this transformation in the philosophical crisis of modernism and the rise of the administrative state.

Introduction
Part I. Truths (and Methods): American legal, political, and economic thought before 1870
Part II. The Turn to Process, 1870 – 1970: Three Essays: A. Law: becoming procedure
B. Political science: the group as process
C. Economics: man and market as technique
Part III. Conclusion: History, method, fracture.

Subject Areas: History of the Americas [HBJK]