The People’s Welfare

“Sophisticated and provocative, well-written, well-argued, and exhaustively researched . . . an important, useful, and controversial attempt to reorient our understanding of nineteenth-century American legal history.” — Law and Legal History

“Offers a vigorous and effective challenge to two related bodies of literature: one that conceives of the law in the early Republic as a mere instrument in the hands of entrepreneur-favoring jurists and legislators, and another that sees government more generally yielding its residual colonial and medieval regulatory functions to the dictates of the market economy.” — American Historical Review

“Well written and thoroughly researched. . . . This is a comprehensive and well documented book, showing the author’s competence in a number of disciplines, including economics, social history, and law.” — Business History Review

“An extraordinarily important historical work on American government regulation in the 19th century. . . . [A] landmark treatise.” — Library Journal

“[A] provocative, prodigiously researched, and beautifully written book.” — Reviews in American History

“[An] interesting and at times provocative book.” — Journal of Economic History

“An enormously important book. . . . The People’s Welfare is an example of the best of historical writing.” — William and Mary Quarterly

“The People’s Welfare is a powerful exercise in demystification. It demonstrates conclusively that, contrary to the regnant laissez-faire mythology, government has been deeply and constructively involved in the American economy since the founding of the republic.” — Arthur Schlesinger Jr.

“There is no question in historical research more compelling for gaining perspective on the central issues of our own day than that of how 'the people’s welfare' and the 'common good' have been defined and pursued in America, in what relationship to rule of law, and with what results. Novak has enriched this perspective with an ambitious research design, presented with admirable clarity and verve.” — Yale Law Journal

“In a brilliant study of American law that challenges both the liberal and the republican readings of American constitutional and economic development, William Novak demonstrates that beneath the thin layer of federal law, the states' lower courts drew on a wide variety of resources to elaborate and enforce the doctrine salus populi, the people’s welfare.” — James T. Kloppenberg in The Virtues of Liberalism