{"product_id":"law-and-community-in-three-american-towns-9780801481697","title":"Law and Community in Three American Towns","description":"\u003cp\u003e • Author(s): Carol J. Greenhouse | Barbara Yngvesson | David M. Engel\u003cbr\u003e • Publisher: Cornell University Press\u003cbr\u003e • Publisher Imprint: Cornell University Press\u003cbr\u003e • BISAC: Government - State, Provincial \u0026amp; Municipal\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMany commentators on the contemporary United States believe that current rates of litigation are a sign of decay in the nation's social fabric. \u003ci\u003eLaw and Community in Three American Towns \u003c\/i\u003eexplores how ordinary people in three towns--located in New England, the Midwest, and the South--view the law, courts, litigants, and social order.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCarol J. Greenhouse, Barbara Yngvesson, and David M. Engel analyze attitudes toward law and law users as a way of commentating on major American myths and ongoing changes in American society. They show that residents of \"Riverside,\" \"Sander County,\" and \"Hopewell\" interpret litigation as a sign of social decline, but they also value law as a symbol of their local way of life. The book focuses on this ambivalence and relates it to the deeply-felt tensions express between \"community\" and \"rights\" as rival bases of society.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe authors, two anthropologists and a lawyer, each with an understanding of a particular region, were surprised to discover that such different locales produced parallel findings. They undertook a comparative project to find out why ambivalence toward the law and law use should be such a common refrain. The answer, they believe, turns out to be less a matter of local traditions than of the ways that people perceive the patterns of their lives as being vulnerable to external forces of change.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Cornell University Press","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":46893402456215,"sku":"9780801481697","price":5201.0,"currency_code":"INR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0666\/3471\/1191\/files\/9780801481697.webp?v=1770315977","url":"https:\/\/atlanticbooks.com\/products\/law-and-community-in-three-american-towns-9780801481697","provider":"Atlantic Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}