Books by Gordon Morris Bakken

Bakken addresses important issues of constitutional history in the context of a seminal period in the history of the American West. Bakken outlines the issues of public policy which the constitution makers faced: issues ranging from resource allocation and taxation to the role of corporations in the community.

?This book is clearly one of the five best works ever written on the legal history of the American West. It represents the definitive study of nineteenth-century legal contract, water, labor, and corporations law in the Rocky Mountain region broadly defined. It is a monograph that belongs in every college library and on the shelf of scholars of the West and of the law.?-The Journal of American History

This is a thought-provoking exploration of the development of civil law in California from 1850 to 1890. Finally, he demonstrates that the law was less certain and the policy considerations less clear when the law actually functioned on an operational level in society.