Christopher L. Tomlins
Christopher Lawrence Tomlins is Chancellor's Professor of Law at the University of California Irvine School of Law and Research Professor Emeritus at the American Bar Foundation. Before joining the American Bar Foundation in 1992, he was Reader in Legal Studies at La Trobe University, Melbourne (Australia). He has a Ph.D. in History (Johns Hopkins) and a fine collection of Masters’ Degrees – in Politics, Philosophy and Economics (Oxford), in American Studies (University of Sussex), and in History (Johns Hopkins).
Chris Tomlins is well known as a legal historian whose interests and research are cast very broadly – from sixteenth century England to twentieth century America; from the legal culture of work and labor to the interrelations of law and literature; from the jurisprudence of Francisco de Vitoria of Salamanca to the revolutionary Marxism of Walter Benjamin. Since beginning his academic career in 1980, Tomlins has written or edited nine books, of which the most recent is Freedom Bound: Law, Labor, and Civic Identity in Colonizing English America, 1580-1865 (2010) (also available here). In March 2011 Freedom Bound was awarded the Bancroft Prize, given annually by the trustees of Columbia University. The book has also been awarded the Hurst Prize of the Law and Society Association, the John Phillip Reid Prize of the American Society for Legal History, and named a Choice "Outstanding Academic Title" for 2011.
Other recent books include the multi-volume Cambridge History of Law in America (published in April 2008, co-edited with Michael Grossberg of Indiana University) and The United States Supreme Court: The Pursuit of Justice (2005). Earlier books include The Many Legalities of Early America (2000), Law, Labor, and Ideology in the Early American Republic (1993), Labor Law in America (1992), and The State and the Unions (1985)
Tomlins has also published more than a hundred chapters, articles, working papers and other bits and pieces. From 1995 until 2004, he was editor of the Law and History Review. Since 2005 he has been first co-editor (with Jack Heinz) then sole editor of Law & Social Inquiry. He also edits the Cambridge University Press book series Cambridge Historical Studies in American Law and Society. His publications have been awarded the Surrency prize of the American Society for Legal History, the Littleton-Griswold prize of the American Historical Association and the J. Willard Hurst prize of the Law and Society Association.
Current research addresses (a) "republican law" 1776-1832; (b) the historiography of legal history "after" Critical Legal History; (c) Walter Benjamin's historical materialism, and (d) The Southampton, Virginia, Slave Rebellion of 1831.
In his spare time he likes to sleep.