The Papers of Henry Clay span the crucial first half of the nineteenth century in American history. Few men in his time were so intimately concerned with the formation of national policy, and few influenced so profoundly the growth of American political institutions. Volume 7, the fourth and final of those dealing with Clay's role as secretary of state, carries the story of his career from January 1, 1828, to March 3, 1829. During these fourteen months, Clay and President John Quincy Adams strive unsuccessfully to solve a number of nagging diplomatic problems before leaving office. Among these are the northeast boundary controversy with Great Britain, the exclusion of American trade from the British West Indies, and the settlement of U.S. spoliation claims with France. Equally frustrating to Clay is the fact that the enormous amount of time and effort he has expended in Adams's reelection campaign has produced so little in return. To his genuine amazement and dismay, Andrew Jackson defeats Adams decisively. The volume ends in March 1829 with Clay facing an uncertain future. Unsure whether he wants again to practice law, he contemplates instead the prospect of managing "Ashland," his Lexington estate. At the same time, convinced that the Jackson administration can only end in disaster, Clay's thoughts turn to running again for the White House in 1832. With this possibility in mind, the nation's ninth secretary of state leaves Washington for home. Publication of this book was assisted by a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.

In this well-researched and engaging book, Paul DeForest Hicks makes a convincing case that the Litchfield Law School provided the most innovative and successful legal education program in the country for almost fifty years (1784-1833). A recent history of the Harvard Law School acknowledged, “In retrospect, both Harvard and Yale have envied Litchfield’s success and wished to claim it as their ancestor.” Upwards of twelve hundred bright and ambitious students came from all over the country to study law at Litchfield with Tapping Reeve and James Gould, who took a national rather than state perspective in their lectures on the evolving principles of American common law. In every year from 1791 to 1860, there were law school alumni, including Aaron Burr and John C. Calhoun, who served at high levels in the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the federal and state governments. Hicks gives fascinating details about many who succeeded as lawyers and in public office but also in the fields of business, finance, education, art and the military. Whether they practiced law or pursued other careers, their collective achievements continued to enhance the prestige of the Litchfield Law School long after it closed.

Whose name is hidden behind the anonymity of the key publication on Mediterranean Lingua Franca? What linguistic reality does the label 'Lingua Franca' conceal? These and related questions are explored in this new book on an enduringly important topic. The book presents a typologically informed analysis of Mediterranean Lingua Franca, as documented in the Dictionnaire de la langue franque ou petit mauresque, which provides an important historical snapshot of contact-induced language change. Based on a close study of the Dictionnaire in its historical and linguistic context, the book proposes hypotheses concerning its models, authorship and publication history, and examines the place of the Dictionnaire's Lingua Franca in the structural typological space between Romance languages, on the one hand, and pidgins, on the other. It refines our understanding of the typology of contact outcomes while at the same time opening unexpected new avenues for both linguistic and historical research.