Kunal Parker - Professor of Law, Dean's Distinguished Scholar, and Associate Dean for Intellectual Life – published the book "The Turn to Process: American Legal, Political, and Economic Thought 1870-1970" in the fall of 2023, and since that time it has received recognition and accolades.
The book 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 shifted from truths, ends, and foundations to methods, processes, and techniques.
Six-Day Symposium on the Book
Balkinization, a legal blog focused on constitutional, First Amendment, and other civil liberties issues, selected Parker's book for one of its symposia in 2024. The blog was created in 2003 by Jack M. Balkin, Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment at Yale Law School. It is an honor for any publication to be chosen for one of its symposia.
In the Balkinization symposium on "The Turn to Process," top legal minds commented on the book, including Paul Gowder (Northwestern Pritzker School of Law), Amalia Kessler (Stanford Law School), Ajay K Mehrotra (Northwestern Pritzker School of Law); Aziz Rana (Boston College Law); and John Witt (Yale Law School).
Their collected posts and commentary can be found here.
Further Recognition
At the Society for U.S. Intellectual History's annual meeting in Boston in December 2024, Parker's book was part of the "Author Meets Critics" panel, where discussants commented on his book, and Parker responded. The panel included Chair and Respondent Angus Burgin (Johns Hopkins University), Casey Eilber (Johns Hopkins University), Paul Murphy (Grand Valley State University), and Daniel Wickberg (University of Texas at Dallas).
In 2024, the British academic and intellectual blog, Engelsberg Ideas, selected "The Turn to Process" as one of the year's notable books. The entry says,
"Kunal M. Parker's 'The Turn to Process: American Legal, Political, and Economic Thought 1870-1970' (Cambridge University Press) is intellectual history done right. The book probes three notionally discrete fields – law, political science, and economics – to discover what lies beneath the surface. In each of those fields, Parker argues, there was a profound shift from a concern with 'truths, ends, and foundations' to one with 'methods, processes, and techniques'. Perhaps, he suggests, something vital was lost in this transition. This is an academic work with much to offer a layman; its ingenious and riveting arguments will be debated for decades to come."
In addition to this book, Parker has published "Making Foreigners: Immigration and Citizenship Law in America" (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015) and "Common Law, History, and Democracy in America, 1790 - 1900: Legal Thought Before Modernism" (Cambridge University Press, 2011).
Parker's teaching areas and interests include American Legal History, Estates and Trusts, Immigration and Nationality Law, and Property.
