David A. Skeel

Bankruptcy in America has a unique history. Initially, the power to prosecute and punish bankruptcies was stated in the United States Constitution to Congress in Article 1 Section 8. It was taken almost directly from English Common Law but evolved over time due to political influences.

Debt’s Dominion by David A Skeel Jr discusses those events and influences through five major periods of time. The book starts out with 1898. Prior to this year, a number of attempts were made to pass legislation on Bankruptcy, but they were all repealed. With the lack of Federal input or powers, the individual states were forced to have their own insolvency laws, but they ran into issues with jurisdiction when someone could run to another state and avoid being punished. So the first chapter focuses on why this particular series of laws worked when none of the previous ones did.

I don’t know much about Bankruptcy Law. I know that you have to file for it and it costs money to do so. I know that there are several different levels of protection based on what you are and how much you are able to pay or something. I picked this book up because it seemed interesting. It is relatively short, but the font is pretty small so that makes up for it. The book was initially printed in 2001, so it might be a bit dated. I never needed to file for Bankruptcy, and don’t really follow the field. There might have been some things that were added due to the Enron debacle and the entire series of events with the 2008 Housing Bubble. There were massive changes due to the 1929 Stock Market Crash so it only stands to reason that they might have done something similar.

Despite my initial misgivings, this book was really informative.
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