Dead Hands: A Social History of Wills, Trusts, and Inheritance Law Paperback – March 9, 2009

Good book, quick delivery.

This book is a great supplement to a trusts & estates class. It presents the material that you will cover in class in a very engaging and anecdotal format.

Several times while I was reading this book, friends intrigued by the title asked me what it was about. "Yes," I said, "it sounds like a novel, and it actually reads that well too."Lawrence M. Friedman, the prolific popularizer of American legal history, has in Dead Hands written a fine, short book that should be accessible to anyone curious about succession law. From a policy standpoint, the most important chapters are probably those dealing with the fall of the rule against perpetuities and the rise of charitable foundations. But Friedman is a great storyteller, and there are some great stories to tell about the wackiness that sometimes ensues when people try to make or break wills, or worse, when they try to ignore planning for their deaths altogether.