Acknowledgements -- Introduction, the larger context of conflict and dispute -- The Institutions for Dispute Resolution, town, court, and church, 1725-1774 -- Judicial resolution of disputes between members of the same community 1725-1774 -- The changing statistical pattern of post-revolutionary litigation -- Commerce, religion, politics, and the nineteenth-century increase in litigation -- The nature and the end of community -- Notes -- A note on the sources -- Index.