The Nature of Litigation in Early New England

If Bruce Mann had written Neighbors and Strangers as he describes it in his reply, he might have been right in stating that I mischaracterized his work. But instead his reply presents a version of legal change revised to write out the central aspects of his theory that I critiqued in my Article. I used the term modernization theory as a simple way of referring to the underlying thrust of Neighbors and Strangers that, in the early eighteenth century, the legal system in colonial Connecticut transformed in response to an expanding economy and other changing social conditions by becoming more formal and predictable and by providing more uniform decisions, thereby creating conditions for a more commercial and market-oriented society