Martin Jordan Minot on the Irrelevance of Blackstone

Ipse Dixit

In this episode, Martin Jordan Minot, a student at the University of Virginia School of Law and the University of Virginia History Department, discusses his note "The Irrelevance of Blackstone: Rethinking the Eighteenth-Century Importance of the Commentaries," which was published in the Virginia Law Review. Minot begins by describing who Blackstone was and why his Commentaries have come to be seen as the definite source for understanding legal thought in late 18th century America. He explain how he used primary source materials, especially commonplace books created by law students, to identify which legal resources were actually considered the most important during that period. He argues that Blackstone paled in importance to other sources, especially Coke, and he argues that this has implications for understanding how people thought about the law during that period. He also offers thoughts about how to produce better scholarship as a law student. Minot is on Twitter at @mjminot.

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