Nadia E. Nedzel - The Anglo-American Conception of the Rule of Law (Palgrave Studies in Classical Liberalism)

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We wish to thank all of the following organizations and individuals who helped to make possible the completion of this book.

Professor Nadia Nedzel specifically wants to thank the Southern University Law Center for providing a one-year sabbatical. The Institute for Economic Analysis in London hosted her as a visiting scholar in the fall of 2018. She offers special thanks to its director Jamie Whyte. The History of Political Economy Center at Duke University hosted her during the spring of 2019. While there, Bruce Caldwell and Kevin Hoover provided invaluable assistance and scholarly wisdom. As always, she is perennially grateful to Judge Carl E. Stewart of the Fifth Circuit for his inspiration and example. Professors James Viator and David Gruning of Loyola University New Orleans Law School were not only her teachers but also continue to serve as scholarly mentors. The Federalist Society provided several opportunities to present early versions of the manuscript.

Professor Nicholas Capaldi wishes to thank Loyola University New Orleans for providing a sabbatical.

Both Professors Nedzel and Capaldi extend a warm thank you to Liberty Fund for allowing us to direct several colloquia on the rule of law. We wish to thank the fellows and the innumerable scholars with whom we have interacted at such colloquia. We wish to acknowledge the special help we received from the librarians at the Hoover Institution at Stanford and the London School of Economics who gave us access to the archives and letters of Hayek and Oakeshott.

Finally, special thanks go to Eric Mack, Timothy Fuller, Jeffrey Ludwig, Alexei Marcoux, and Alberto Mingardi for reading and critiquing the manuscript.

In their new book, Nadia E. Nedzel and Nicholas Capaldi offer a real tour de force of the history of the English legal tradition of the rule of law, which has been under attack since 19th century Positivism made inroads into jurisprudence. However, Nedzel and Capaldi trace the beginning of the attacks on Rule of Law to the 17th century, and link it with the Baconian Project and the later Enlightenment Project, which was bound to undermine civil association and, consequently, individual freedom. They begin their discussion with Ockham, Bacon, Coke, Hobbes, and others before concluding with Hayek and Oakeshottthe last great proponents of the English legal tradition. This is by far the most scholarly, comprehensive, insightful, and provocative discussion of the rule of law to date. This book is a hallmark of profound scholarship and sound philosophical analysis.

Zbigniew Janowski, Lecturer, Towson University