The Commentaries are considered as the leading work on the development of English
law and also they played a great role in the development of the American legal system.
The Commentaries were influential mainly because they were in fact readable, and because they met a need. The work
is as much an apologia for the legal system of the time as it is an explanation;
even when the law was obscure, Blackstone sought to make it seem rational, just,
and inevitable that things should be how they were.