Changes

[[File:American_Law_Hurst.jpg|thumbnail|left|300px|''[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1584777168/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1584777168&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=7a67830d220cd030c00dd1c6c91c5b82 The Growth of American Law: The Law Makers]'' by James Willard Hurst]]

It is Hurst’s study of the Wisconsin timber industry that William Novak cites to support his belief that Hurst was a historical sociologist in the same vein as Marc Bloch, E.P. Thompson, and Immanuel Wallerstein. While their conclusions differ, Novak argues that these historians used an interdisciplinary approach in an attempt to understand the “interrelationship of individual action, large-scale social structures, and fundamental processes of historical change.” <ref>Novak, p. 98.</ref> Novak states that while “Hurst’s historical sociology was so extensive and multifaceted that to some extent it defies compression and concise summary” Hurst sought to connect nineteenth century American law to the broader story of the general social experience.<ref>Novak, p. 100.</ref>

Novak argues that Hurst had developed three categories for understanding law in society and used them as a metanarrative in all of his substantive books: function, value and power. Function was the “relationship of law to the functional requirements of a market economy.” Value was the “relationship of law to the amorphous realm of articulated norms in society.” Finally, power was “the relationship of law to public force.”<ref>Novak, p. 118.</ref> “Through these basic categories, Hurst explored the interaction of law with (a) economy, (b) society, and (c) polity.”<ref>Novak, p. 118.</ref> Hurst’s approach was revolutionary. Instead of examining constitutional law through judicial review, Hurst incorporated legal history into American socio-economic development, American liberalism and the constitutional state.