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From: The Law and Politics Book Review
BOOK NOTICES: Vol 23 (8): 419-445
As a service to subscribers, the REVIEW provides this brief summary of the contents of recent reference works, anthologies of previously published materials, textbooks and collected readings designed for students, casebooks designed for undergraduate and law school use, later editions of books previously reviewed in this journal, and other specialized publications. Unless noted, the comments are taken from the book’s jacket cover or the publisher’s webpage.
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Norton & Company, Incorporated, W. W.
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Ashgate Publishing
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Cotter, Anne-Marie M. Little Angels: An International Legal Perspective on Child Discrimination. Ashgate Publishing, 2011. $124.95 ISBN: 978-1-4094-2980-7.
Following on from her previous nine books on discrimination law, Anne-Marie Mooney Cotter now focuses on the goal of child equality. Examining issues of child labour and the relevant laws which are designed to protect the most vulnerable in our society, the book explores the primary role of legislation and the judicial system and its impact on the fight for child rights and the ultimate goal of the end of inequality.
The book considers the major common law countries of Australia and New Zealand, Africa and South Africa, Canada, Mexico and the United States, and the United Kingdom and Ireland, as well as the North American Free Trade Agreement and the European Union Treaty in a historical and compelling analysis of discrimination worldwide. By providing a detailed examination of child rights and the law, it will be an important read for those concerned with equality and empowering those most vulnerable to discrimination, the children.
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Kjær, Anne L. and Silvia Adamo. Linguistic Diversity and European Democracy. Ashgate Publishing, 2011. $124.95 ISBN: 978-1-4094-0860-4.
What role does linguistic diversity play in European democratic and legal processes? Is it an obstacle to deliberative democracy and a hindrance to legal certainty, or a cultural and economic asset and a prerequisite for the free movement of citizens? This book examines the tensions and contradictions of European language laws and policy from a multi-disciplinary perspective. With contributions from leading researchers in EU law and legal theory, political science, sociology, sociolinguistic and cognitive linguistics, it combines mutually exclusive and competing perspectives of linguistic diversity. The work will be a valuable resource for academics and researchers in the areas of European law, legal theory and linguistics.
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Malloy, Robin P., and Michael Diamond. The Public Nature of Private Property. Ashgate Publishing, 2012. $199.95 ISBN: 978-0-7546-7951-6.
What, exactly, is private property? Or, to ask the question another way, what rights to intrude does the public have in what is generally accepted as private property? The answer, perhaps [*421] surprisingly to some, is that the public has not only a significant interest in regulating the use of private property but also in defining it, and establishing its contour and texture. In The Public Nature of Private Property, therefore, scholars from the United States and the United Kingdom challenge traditional conceptions of private property while presenting a range of views on both the meaning of private property, and on the ability, some might say the requirement, of the state to regulate it.
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Stein, Gregory M. Modern Chinese Real Estate Law: Property Development in an Evolving Legal System. Ashgate Publishing, 2012. $119.95 ISBN: 978-0-7546-7868-7.
With massive growth taking place in the real estate industry, how can China develop a free market and private ownership of land while still officially subscribing to Communist ideology? This study uses fieldwork interviews to establish how the Chinese real estate market operates in practice from both legal and business perspectives. It describes how the market functions, which laws are applicable and how they are applied, and how a nation can achieve dramatic economic growth so rapidly while its legal system is so unsettled.
The book demonstrates how China is drawing on the world for ideas while retaining a domestic system that remains essentially Chinese, and how the recent revitalization of China's real estate market has confounded the predictions of many developments economists.
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Cambridge University Press
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Foley, Elizabeth Price. The Tea Party: Three Principles. Cambridge University Press, 2012. AUD $29.95 ISBN: 978-1-1070-1135-9.
In The Tea
Party: Three Principles, constitutional law professor Elizabeth
Price Foley takes on the mainstream media's characterization of the
American Tea Party movement, asserting that it has been distorted in a
way that prevents meaningful political dialogue and may even be
dangerous for America's future. Foley sees the Tea Party as a movement
of principles over politics. She identifies three 'core principles' of
American constitutional law that bind the decentralized, wide-ranging
movement: limited government, unapologetic US sovereignty and
constitutional originalism. These three principles, Foley explains, both
define the Tea Party movement and predict its effect on the American
political landscape. Foley explains the three principles' significance
to the American founding and constitutional structure. She then connects
the principles to current issues such as health care reform, illegal
immigration, the war on terror, and internationalism.[*422]
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Forsythe, David C. The Politics of Prisoner Abuse-The United States and Enemy Prisoners after 9/11. Cambridge University Press, 2012. £17.99 ISBN: 978-0-5211-8110-5.
When states are threatened by war and terrorism, can we really expect them to abide by human rights and humanitarian law? David Forsythe's bold analysis of US policies towards terror suspects after 9/11 addresses this issue directly. Covering moral, political and legal aspects, he examines the abuse of enemy detainees at the hands of the US. At the centre of the debate is the Bush Administration, which Forsythe argues displayed disdain for international law, in contrast to the general public's support for humanitarian affairs. He explores the similarities and differences between Presidents Obama and Bush on the question of prisoner treatment in an age of terrorism and asks how the Administration should proceed. The book traces the Pentagon's and CIA's records in mistreating prisoners, providing an account which will be of interest to all those who value humanitarian law.
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Halliday, Terence C. Fates of Political Liberalism in the British Post-Colony: The Politics of the Legal Complex. Cambridge University Press, 2012. AUD $150.00 ISBN: 978-1-1070-1278-3.
What explains divergences in political liberalism among new nations that shared the same colonial heritage? This book assembles exciting original essays on former colonies of the British Empire in South Asia, Africa and Southeast Asia that gained independence after World War II. The interdisciplinary country specialists reveal how inherent contradictions within British colonial rule were resolved after independence in contrasting liberal-legal, despotic and volatile political orders. Through studies of the longue durée and particular events, this book presents a theory of political liberalism in the post-colony and develops rich hypotheses on the conditions under which the legal complex, civil society and the state shape alternative postcolonial trajectories around political freedom. This provocative volume presents new perspectives for scholars and students of postcolonialism, political development and the politics of the legal complex, as well as for policy makers and publics who struggle to construct and defend basic legal freedoms.
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Kieff, F. Scott. Perspectives on Commercializing Innovation. Cambridge University Press, 2012. AUD $185.00 ISBN: 978-0-5218-8731-1.
Intellectual property is a vital part of the global economy, accounting for about half of the GDP in countries like the United States. Innovation, competition, economic growth and jobs can all be helped or hurt by different approaches to this key asset class, where seemingly slight changes in [*423] the rules of the game can have remarkable impact. This book brings together diverse perspectives from the fields of law, economics, business and political science to explore the ways varying approaches to intellectual property can positively and negatively impact our economy and society. Employing approaches that are both theoretically rigorous and grounded in the real world, Perspectives on Commercializing Innovation is well suited for practising lawyers, managers, lawmakers and analysts, as well as academics conducting research or teaching in a range of courses in law schools, business schools and economics departments, at either the undergraduate or graduate level.
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Weckert, John and Jeroen van den Hoven. Information Technology and Moral Philosophy. Cambridge University Press, 2008. $103.00 ISBN: 978-0-5218-5549-5.
Information technology is an integral part of the practices and institutions of post-industrial society. It is also a source of hard moral questions and thus is both a probing and relevant area for moral theory. In this volume, an international team of philosophers sheds light on many of the ethical issues arising from information technology, including informational privacy, digital divide and equal access, e-trust and tele-democracy. Collectively, these essays demonstrate how accounts of equality and justice, property and privacy benefit from taking into account how information technology has shaped our social and epistemic practices and our moral experiences. Information technology changes the way that we look at the world and deal with one another. It calls, therefore, for a re-examination of notions such as friendship, care, commitment and trust
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Wilson, Richard A. Writing History in International Criminal Trials. Cambridge University Press, 2012. AUD $41.95 ISBN: 978-1-1070-1278-3.
Why do international criminal tribunals write
histories of the origins and causes of armed conflicts? Richard Ashby
Wilson conducted research with judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys
and expert witnesses in three international criminal tribunals to
understand how law and history are combined in the courtroom. Historical
testimony is now an integral part of international trials, with
prosecutors and defense teams using background testimony to pursue
decidedly legal objectives. In the Slobodan Milošević trial, the
prosecution sought to demonstrate special intent to commit genocide by
reference to a long-standing animus, nurtured within a nationalist
mindset. For their part, the defense called historical witnesses to
undermine charges of superior responsibility, and to mitigate the
sentence by representing crimes as reprisals. Although legal ways of
knowing are distinct from those of history, the two are effectively
combined in international trials in a way that challenges us to rethink
the relationship between law and history. [*424]
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Carolina Academic Press
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Berend, Laura and Jean Ramirez. Criminal Litigation in Action. Carolina Academic Press, 2012. $50.00 ISBN: 978-1-5946-0945-9.
Criminal Litigation in Action, Second Edition is designed to prepare law students and new lawyers for the practice of criminal law in the trial courts. The book is based on the fictitious but realistic criminal case of People v. Roger Battistone and tracks the case from arrest through sentencing. Students learn by doing. For example, when the class addresses pretrial release, students participate in a simulation exercise requiring them to play the role of the prosecutor, defense counsel, or judge at a bail review hearing. Similarly, students participate in simulation exercises on charging, interviewing, preliminary hearings, grand jury proceedings, discovery, motion hearings, plea bargaining, and sentencing hearings. Along the way, students become familiar with the various stages of a criminal case by applying the law found in judicial opinions, statutes, rules of court, local rules, and jury instructions to the facts of the Battistone case.
The book explores advocacy at each stage of a criminal case in the trial courts, including the prosecutor's role, defense counsel's role, prosecutorial misconduct, ineffective assistance of counsel, the consequences of an arrest, charge, and conviction for the accused, and the relative merits of alternative procedures. Students can expect to develop competency in the critical skills of fact-gathering and fact-management; case evaluation; courtroom advocacy including familiarity with courtroom protocol and interfacing with the judge; written advocacy, including the writing of motions and sentencing memoranda; and the application of the various sources of law in a criminal case.
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Erez, Edna, Michael Kilchling, and Jo-Anne Wemmers. Therapeutic Jurisprudence and Victim Participation in Justice: International Perspectives. Carolina Academic Press, 2011. $50.00 ISBN: 978-1-59460-946-6.
This book employs principles of therapeutic jurisprudence (TJ) to examine how various countries approach victim participation in criminal justice proceedings. It collects papers from a conference in Onati, Spain, that was supported by a grant from the Transcoop Programme of the Alexander Von Humboldt Foundation to study the potential impact of TJ approaches on victims. The Onati conference broke important ground by addressing victim welfare and well-being during and after participation in criminal justice proceedings and brought scholars from different disciplines and nations together to share their ideas. The resulting collection brings these ideas to a wider audience in the fields of law, legal studies, sociology, psychology and criminology/victimology. The contributors are recognized researchers in their home countries [*425] and the collection provides yet another critical and empirical research contribution from a TJ perspective.
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Felix. Robert L., and Ralph U. Whitten. American Conflicts Law. Carolina Academic Press. 2011. $90.00 ISBN: 978-1-5946-0652-6.
American Conflicts Law is a comprehensive
text designed to be used as a companion to all modern casebooks
currently used in courses in Conflict of Laws in United States' law
schools. The sixth edition of American
Conflicts Law continues the tradition of the first five
editions in covering all important topics included in the Conflicts
course. However, the text has been completely reorganized and shortened
to achieve a succinct, but in-depth, treatment of this conceptually
difficult subject. The revised and shortened version of the text will
better meet the needs of law students for an informative and manageable
study aid for the course in Conflict of Laws. Chapter One briefly
introduces the subject and traces the historical evolution of Conflicts
doctrine in the United States. Chapters Two and Three then establish the
foundation for the exploration of conflict-of-laws in the United States
by providing background in the modern law of personal jurisdiction and
interstate judgment enforcement subjects that provide critical
background for understanding choice-of-law theory. Chapter 4 introduces
students to the choice-of-law systems currently prevailing in the United
States, together with critical commentary on each system. Chapter 5
rounds out the coverage of choice-of-law systems with a discussion of
numerous topics, such as Domicile and Proof of Foreign Law, that are
common to all systems. Chapter 6 then explores the constitutional limits
that exist on state conflict-of-laws doctrine in the United States, with
special attention to the Due Process and Full Faith and Credit Clauses
of the United States Constitution. Chapter 7 ends the general material
with an examination of 'vertical choice of law,' the so-called Erie
doctrine that governs the obligations of federal courts to apply state
law in diversity and other actions. After this general background
material, Chapters Eight through Twelve apply the general principles
examined in Chapters One through Seven to particular topics. These
chapters include coverage of conflict-of-laws problems in Torts (Chapter
Eight), Contracts (Chapter Nine), Property (Chapter 10), Inheritance
(Chapter 11), and Domestic Relations (Chapter 12). The revised text of
the new sixth edition has, of course, been updated to include coverage
of all modern developments since the fifth edition. This includes
coverage in Chapter 4 of the Illinois Supreme Court's decision in
Townsend v. Sears Roebuck & Co., 879 N.E.2d 893 (2007) and, in
Chapter 7, the United States Supreme Court's decision under the Erie
doctrine of Shady Grove Orthopedic Associates v. Allstate Insurance Co.,
130 S. Ct. 1431(2010). The most important and relevant contemporary
writing on Conflict of Laws has also been added to the footnotes. The
authors believe that the revised sixth edition of American Conflicts Law
will provide a useful tool with which to complete the understanding of
modern choice-of-law doctrine in United States law schools. [*426]
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Franklin, Kris. The Lawyer's Practice: A Context and Practice Case File. Carolina Academic Press, 2011. $48.00 ISBN: 978-1-5946-0809-4.
This innovative case file provides materials for students to work in the role of attorney as they learn and master the primary skills needed for legal practice. The file is equally suitable for first-year legal practice/legal writing classes or upper-level simulation courses focused on interviewing, counseling, negotiation or pre-trial litigation. Student-attorneys represent clients on both sides of a lawsuit through a realistic and carefully-sequenced series of exercises that track the stages of pre-trial work while encouraging mastery of many basic skills of legal practice: research, formal and informal legal writing, interviewing and counseling clients, fact development, discovery, motion practice, negotiation and drafting. Every chapter of the case file is scaffolded on students earlier work and critical reflection, permitting students to develop a confident sense of professional identity as they see the results of their efforts play out as the case develops. Chapters feature lively commentary giving an overview of the assigned task and contextualizing it within the goals for the case. The materials are accompanied by a comprehensive Teacher's Manual that includes suggestions for teaching and using the case file, detailed instructions for clients, and additional documents available only to counsel for each side.
This book is part of the Context and Practice Series, edited by Michael Hunter Schwartz, Professor of Law & Associate Dean for Faculty and Academic Development, Washburn University School of Law.
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Johns, Margaret Z. and Rex R. Perschbacher. The United States Legal System: An Introduction. Carolina Academic Press, 2012. $32.00 ISBN: 978-1-6116-3010-7.
This book is designed to introduce incoming law students to the U.S. legal system in order to prepare them to get the most out of law school from the day it begins. Authors Johns and Perschbacher do not assume a great deal of prior knowledge and begin by explaining what legal education is all about. There is then a chapter on the legal profession — who are all those lawyers, how are they regulated, and what are they doing? The book then covers the structure of our legal system, looking at the complex relationship between the states and the federal government as well as at the institutions of both. Finally, two important sources of law are considered: legislatures and courts. The book examines some of the ways that legislation is interpreted and some of the ways that the law evolves through the judicial process.
For this edition, the authors revised and updated all the chapters, introducing new material on the current state of legal practice and its challenges. They kept the centerpiece of chapter 6, Lockyer v. San Francisco, but added context regarding the on-going litigation on same-sex marriage that currently is in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Chapter 6 retains its focus on efforts of the City of San Francisco and its then-Mayor, Gavin Newsom to bring same-sex marriage to the City on their own. The authors use Lockyer v. San Francisco to raise very interesting questions about [*427] the rule of law and separation of powers.
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Redfield, Sarah E. The Education Pipeline to the Professions: Programs that Work to Increase Diversity. Carolina Academic Press, 2012. $40.00 ISBN: 978-1-6116-3050-3.
Despite decades of working to improve the diversity of the American Bar, minority attorneys make up only 10% of the profession. In The Education Pipeline to the Professions, Professor Sarah Redfield, a national expert in education law and diversity issues, brings together fourteen exemplary programs that work to change the face of the legal profession. From preschool to partner, these programs provide opportunities for students and lawyers along the educational pipeline. Professor Redfield and her coauthors highlight successful pipeline programs, offering keys to effective practices and providing blueprints for replicating programs that have demonstrated rigor, relevance, and results. Each chapter is written by a leader in the field with sustained real-life experience in improving outcomes for underrepresented minority students. Chapter authors discuss their goals, their successes, and their concerns, as well as their budgets and organizational structures; each offers overall reflections and future help to those who are seeking to implement a pipeline program without reinventing the wheel.
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Rhodes, Anne-Marie. Art Law & Transactions. Carolina Academic Press, 2012. $75.00 ISBN: 978-1-5946-0773-8.
Art Law & Transactions presents art law along a transactional timeline of acquisition, ownership, and disposition. Issues are framed within an art market orientation to immediately challenge students to think like lawyers. The transactional focus reveals the uneven development of art law as works of art alternate between ordinary commercial status and exceptional status.
The chapters on Acquisition explore the three major acquisition venues (from an artist, a dealer, or at auction) and the core legal issues of authenticity and title. The chapters on Ownership begin with crossing borders, followed by moral rights, and art loans. Disposition concludes the transactional timeline with sales and exchanges (echoing acquisition), gratuitous dispositions (to family, friends, and charities), and valuation. Historic and contemporary vignettes from the domestic and international art world are sprinkled throughout the book to engage the reader and to underscore art law’s roots and global impact.
In addition to traditional and current art law cases, the transactional format uniquely incorporates student drafting exercises. For example, the first Chapter, "Acquisition from an Artist," includes two commission agreements—one by an artist, the other by a lawyer. Students can readily see what each party values and use that to fashion an agreement for Mr. Smith, the hypothetical client. Mr. Smith appears regularly throughout the book: buying through a dealer, importing from [*428] abroad, lending to a museum, acting as an estate fiduciary, and bequeathing art in his will. The exercises are optional and could be used as team projects or negotiation exercises. Statutory materials, international treaties, and conventions are provided on a CD.
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Columbia University Press
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Armstrong, Michael F. They Wished They Were Honest : The Knapp Commission and New York City Police Corruption. Columbia University Press, 2012. $29.50 ISBN: 978-0-2311-5354-6.
In fifty years of prosecuting and defending criminal cases in New York City and elsewhere,Michael F. Armstrong has often dealt with cops. For a single two-year span, as chief counsel to the Knapp Commission, he was charged with investigating them. Based on Armstrong's vivid recollections of this watershed moment in law enforcement accountability -- prompted by the New York Times's report on whistleblower cop Frank Serpico -- They Wished They Were Honest recreates the dramatic struggles and significance of the Commission and explores the factors that led to its success and the restoration of the NYPD's public image. Serpico's charges against the NYPD encouraged Mayor John Lindsay to appoint prominent attorney Whitman Knapp to chair a Citizen's Commission on police graft. Overcoming a number of organizational, budgetary, and political hurdles, Chief Counsel Armstrong cobbled together an investigative group of a half-dozen lawyers and a dozen agents. Just when funding was about to run out, the "blue wall of silence" collapsed. A flamboyant "Madame," a corrupt lawyer, and a weasely informant led to a "super thief" cop, who was trapped and "turned" by the Commission.This led to sensational and revelatory hearings, which publicly refuted the notion that departmental corruption was limited to only a "few rotten apples." In the course of his narrative, Armstrong illuminates police investigative strategy; governmental and departmental political maneuvering; ethical and philosophical issues in law enforcement; the efficacy (or lack thereof) of the police's anticorruption efforts; the effectiveness of the training of police officers; the psychological and emotional pressures that lead to corruption; and the effects of police criminality on individuals and society. He concludes with the effects, in today's world, of Knapp and succeeding investigations into police corruption and the value of permanent outside monitoring bodies, such as the special prosecutor's office, formed in response to the Commission's recommendation, as well as the current monitoring commission, of which Armstrong is chairman.
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Duke University Press
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Kommers, Donald P., Russell A. Miller, and Ruth Bader. The Constitutional Jurisprudence of the Federal Republic of Germany. Duke University Press, 2012. $115.95 ISBN: 978-0-8223-5266-2.
First published in 1989, The Constitutional Jurisprudence of the Federal Republic of Germany has become an invaluable resource for scholars and practitioners of comparative, international, and constitutional law, as well as of German and European politics. The third edition of this renowned English-language reference has now been fully updated and significantly expanded to incorporate both previously omitted topics and recent decisions of the German Federal Constitutional Court. Compared to previous editions of The Constitutional Jurisprudence of the Federal Republic of Germany, this third edition more closely tracks Germany's Basic Law and, therefore, the systematic approach reflected in the most respected German constitutional law commentaries. Entirely new chapters address the relationship between German law and European and international law; social and economic rights, including the property and occupational rights cases that have emerged from Reunification; jurisprudence related to issues of equality, particularly gender equality; and the tension between Germany's counterterrorism efforts and its constitutional guarantees of liberty.
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Envelope Books
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Afrasiabi, Peter. Show Trials: How Property Gets More Legal Protection Than People in Our Failed Immigration System. Envelope Books, 2012. $20.00 ISBN: 978-0-9847-9152-1.
Narrative nonfiction assessment of the failed
American immigration system focused on the individual constituents of
the system: the judges, the federal courts, the law itself, the
government lawyers, the private lawyers and the unrepresented
immigrants. By tracing real world cases, the absence of due process and
erosion of justice is seen. At various points, the book pivots to the
world of property law where the same due process infirmities, as seen,
do not exist. Rich in historical context and filled with new,
never-before-published date, the book delivers a powerful contemporary
narrative of the immigration system that forces readers to question
basic assumptions about modern immigration policy. The book concludes
with specific reforms.[*430]
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Europa Law Publishing
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Hardt, Sascha, Luc Verhey, and Wytze van der Woude. Parliaments and Military Missions. Europa Law Publishing, 2012. $36.00 ISBN: 978-9-0895-2118-7
In October 2009, the Montesquieu Institute Maastricht hosted a conference on parliamentary involvement with military missions. Even where such missions do not concern the actual waging of war, sending troops on military missions abroad is never to be undertaken lightly. No matter how many safeguards are put in place, it remains a decision that potentially risks the lives of men and women in the armed forces. When lives are so directly influenced by political decision-making, the question arises of what should be the role of the prime representatives of the people - the members of parliaments. On the one hand, parliamentary involvement seems a logical consequence of the gravity of this kind of decision. On the other hand, the decision-making process should not be unnecessarily delayed. During the conference, the pros and cons of parliamentary involvement were addressed by a group of experts - both scholars and former politicians from Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK. Not surprisingly, evidence of deeply-rooted differences in political and constitutional cultures prompted lively debates, as demonstrated in the contributions in this booklet.
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Hart Publishing
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Ballinger, Christopher. The House of Lords 1911-2011: A Century of Non-Reform. Hart
Publishing, 2012. $62.00 ISBN: 978-1-8494-6289-1.
For the UK's House of Lords, reform is often characterized as unfinished business: a riddle that has been left unanswered since 1911. But, rarely can an unanswered riddle have had so many answers offered, even though few have been accepted. Indeed, when Viscount Cave was invited in the mid-1920s to lead a Cabinet committee on Lords reform, he complained of finding "the ground covered by an embarrassing mass of proposals." That embarrassing mass continued throughout the 20th century. Much ink has been spilled on what should be done with the upper House of Parliament, but much less ink has been expended on why reform has been so difficult to achieve. This book analyzes in detail the principal attempts to reform the House of Lords. Starting with the UK's Parliament Act of 1911, the book examines the century of non-reform that followed, in the process drawing upon substantial archival sources, many of which have been under-utilized until now. These sources challenge many of the existing understandings of the [*431] history of House of Lords reform and the reasons for success or failure of reform attempts, arguing against the popular idea that the 1911 Act was intended by its supporters to be a temporary measure. The book will be of interest to all those working in constitutional law, as well as those with an interest in legal history. (Series: Hart Studies in Constitutional Law - Vol. 1)
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Elberling, Björn. The Defendant in International Criminal Proceedings: Between Law and Historiography. Hart Publishing, 2012. $134.00 ISBN: 978-1-8494-6266-2.
It is often said that criminal procedure should ensure that the defendant is a subject, not just an object, of proceedings. This book asks to what extent this can be said to be true of international criminal trials.
The first part of the book aims to find out the extent to which defendants before international criminal courts are able to take an active part in their trials. It takes an in-depth look at the procedural regimes of international courts, viewed against a benchmark provided by national provisions representing the main traditions of criminal procedure and by international human rights law.
The results of this comparative endeavour are then used to shed light, from a practical point of view, on the oft-debated question whether (international) criminal trials should be used as a tool for writing history or whether, as claimed by Martti Koskenniemi, pursuing this goal leads to a danger of “show trials”.
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Joerges, Christian,and Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann. Constitutionalism, Multilevel Trade Governance and International Economic Law. Hart Publishing, 2011. $72.00 ISBN: 978-1-8494-6165-8.
This is a book about the ever more complex legal networks of transnational economic governance structures and their legitimacy problems. It takes up the challenge of the editors' earlier pioneering works which have called for more cross-sectoral and interdisciplinary analyses by scholars of international law, European and international economic law, conflict of laws, international relations theory and social philosophy to examine the interdependences of multilevel governance in transnational economic, social, environmental and legal relations. Two complementary strands of theorising are expounded. One argues that globalisation and the universal recognition of human rights are transforming the intergovernmental 'society of states' into a cosmopolitan community of citizens which requires more effective constitutional safeguards for protecting human rights and consumer welfare in the national and international governance and legal regulation of international trade. The second emphasises the dependence of the functioning of international markets and liberal trade on governance arrangements that [*432] respond credibly to safety and environmental concerns of consumers, traders, political and non-governmental actors. Enquiries into the generation of international standards and empirical analyses of legalisation and judicialisation practices form part of this agenda.
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McEwin, Ian R. Intellectual Property, Competition Law and Economics in Asia. Hart Publishing, 2011. $156.00 ISBN: 978-1-8494-6087-3.
This book results from a conference held in Singapore in September 2009 that brought together distinguished lawyers and economists to examine the differences and similarities in the intersection between intellectual property and competition laws in Asia. The prime focus was how best to balance these laws to improve economic welfare. Countries in Asia have different levels of development and experience with intellectual property and competition laws. Japan has the longest experience and now vigorously enforces both competition and intellectual property laws. Most other countries in Asia have only recently introduced intellectual property laws (due to the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement) and competition laws (sometimes due to the World Bank, International Monetary Fund or free trade agreements). It would be naïve to think that laws, even if similar on the surface, have the same goals or can be enforced similarly. Countries have differing degrees of acceptance of these laws, different economic circumstances and differing legal and political institutions. To set the scene, Judge Doug Ginsburg, Greg Sidak, David Teece and Bill Kovacic look at the intersection of intellectual property and competition laws in the United States. Next are country chapters on Asia, each jointly authored by a lawyer and an economist. The country chapters outline the institutional background to the intersection in each country, discuss the policy underpinnings (theoretically as well as describing actual policy initiatives), analyse the case law in the area, and make policy prescriptions.
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Ogus, Anthony, and Willem H van Boom. Juxtaposing Autonomy and Paternalism in Private
Law. Hart Publishing, 2011. $85.00 ISBN: 978-1-9494-6118-4.
Selecting an appropriate balance in the law between autonomy and paternalism is an important and difficult task, requiring a careful consideration of moral, political and economic values. This collection deals with the task at both general and specific levels, locating itself within the broader context of the relationship between law and market forces. Concepts are defined and analysed, in particular the distinction between the coercive approach of 'hard paternalism' in the law, and the 'nudge' approach of 'soft paternalism'. Attention is then focused on how the tensions between the concepts are resolved in the law of contract, where deficient information and mistakes can justify an interventionist approach. Besides overviews of the issues within the general law of contract, and historical studies of the relevant principles in the common law and Roman law, the book also includes studies of specific areas, notably insurance contracts and consumer bankruptcy. The authors, from North America, the United Kingdom and continental Europe, include economists, [*433] sociologists and traditional legal scholars.
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Proulx, Vincent-Joël, and Bruno Simma. Transnational Terrorism and State Accountability: A New Theory of Prevention. Hart Publishing, 2011. $134.00 ISBN: 978-1-8494-6285-3.
Every State has an obligation to prevent terrorist attacks emanating from its territory. This proposition stems from various multilateral agreements and UN Security Council resolutions. This study exhaustively addresses the scope of this obligation of prevention and the legal consequences flowing from its violation, so as to provide greater clarity on governments' counterterrorism duties and to enhance State accountability for preventable wrongs. It defines the contents and contours of the obligation while placing critical emphasis on the mechanics of State responsibility. Whether obscured by new technologies like the Internet, the sophisticated cellular structure of some terrorist organisations or convoluted political realities, the level of governmental involvement in terrorist activities is no longer readily discernible in every instance. Furthermore, the prospect of governments waging surrogate warfare through proxies also poses intractable challenges to the mechanism of attribution in the context of State responsibility.
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Sloan, James. The Militarisation of Peacekeeping in the Twenty-First Century. Hart Publishing, 2011. $124.00 ISBN: 978-1-8494-6114-6.
Since the end of the last century, UN peacekeeping has undergone a fundamental and largely unexamined change. Peacekeeping operations, long expected to use force only in self-defence and to act impartially, are now increasingly relied upon by the Security Council as a means to maintain and restore security within a country. The operations are established under Chapter VII of the UN Charter and some are empowered to use 'all necessary measures', language traditionally reserved for enforcement operations.
Through a close examination of these twenty-first century peacekeeping operations - including operations in Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Côte d'Ivoire, Haiti and the Darfur region of the Sudan - the book shows that they are, for the most part, fundamentally ill-suited to the enforcement-type tasks being asked of them. The operations, which are under-funded, under-equipped and whose troops are under-trained, frequently lurch from crisis to crisis. There is scant evidence, some 10 years on, that matters are likely to improve.
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Stalford, Helen. Children
and the European Union: Rights, Welfare and Accountability.
Hart Publishing, 2012. $57.00 ISBN: 978-1-8411-3765-0. [*434]
This book examines in detail the status of children in the EU. Drawing on a range of disciplinary perspectives, including the sociology of childhood and human rights discourse, it offers a critical analysis of the legal and policy framework underpinning EU children's rights across a range of areas, including family law, education, immigration and child protection.
Traditionally children's rights at this level have been articulated primarily in the context of the free movement of persons provisions, inevitably restricting entitlement to migrant children of EU nationality. In the past decade, however, innovative interpretations of EU law by the Court of Justice, coupled with important constitutional developments, have prompted the development of a much more robust children's rights agenda. This culminated in the incorporation of a more explicit reference to children's rights in the Lisbon Treaty, followed by the Commission's launch, in February 2011, of a dedicated EU 'Agenda' to promote and safeguard the rights of the child.
The analysis presented in this book therefore comes at a pivotal point in the history of EU children's rights, providing a detailed and critical overview of a range of substantive areas, and making an important contribution to international children's rights studies.
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Tams, Christian J. and Antonios Tzanakopoulos. The Settlement of International Disputes. Hart Publishing, 2012. £45.00 ISBN: 978-1-8494-6303-4.
This collection of documents brings together a large number of primary sources on the peaceful settlement of disputes in a usable and affordable format. The documents included reflect the diverse techniques of international dispute settlement, as recognised in Articles 2(3) and 33 of the UN Charter, such as negotiation, mediation, arbitration and adjudication. The book comprises the most relevant multilateral treaties establishing dispute settlement regimes, as well as examples of special agreements, compromissory clauses, optional clause declarations and relevant resolutions of international organisations. It covers both diplomatic and adjudicative methods of dispute settlement and follows a basic division between general dispute settlement mechanisms, and sectoral regimes in fields such as human rights, WTO law, investment, law of the sea, environmental law and arms control. The book is the first widely-available collection of key documents on dispute settlement. It is aimed at teachers, students and practitioners of international law and related disciplines.
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Zhang, Qianfan. The Constitution of China: A Contextual Analysis. Hart Publishing, 2012. $34.00 ISBN: 978-1-8411-3740-7.
This book on China's constitution and its tradition of constitutionalism is one of the first in the English language, and as such provides a much needed overview of China's constitutional history and present arrangements. The nine chapters are divided into three parts. The first part (Chapters [*435] 1 & 2) deals with China's constitutional history, its indigenous and Confucian antecedents, as well as the turbulent century which led up to the 1982 Constitution and the new order which this ushered in. The second chapter deals with the distinctive features of its current constitution. The second part (Chapters 3-6) introduces the institutional structure defined in the current constitution - the relationship between the Centre and the Regions, the role of the party and the role of the People's Congress, the meaning of the socialist rule of law, and the independence of the judiciary. The third part (Chapters 7-9) discusses the major developments in human rights and their deficiencies - the protection offered to life, liberty, property and equality, and at the same time the currently dormant areas of political and religious freedom. The book concludes with a chapter looking forward to the future of the People's Congress and Chinese constitutionalism. In sum, the book offers a readable account of the salient features of Chinese constitutional developments in all major areas.
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LFB Scholarly Publishing Llc
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Eyre, William. Privacy and Government Surveillance. LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC, 2011. $65.00 ISBN: 978-1-5933-2456-8.
Civil society in the United States in the 21st century has seen the abandonment of American concepts of individual freedom, privacy, expression and autonomy. Eyre examines the Real ID Act in this context, as an example of laws passed since September 2001 restricting civil liberties. The Real ID Act facilitates the current and future surveillance regime. Real IDs and the database(s) to which they are linked represent a de facto national ID system facilitating monitoring citizens movements, speech and political activities when fully operational. The Real ID Act is examined as an unfunded mandate and vehicle for unconstitutional abridgement of First Amendment guarantees including political expression.
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Nunns, Stephen. Acting Up: Free Speech, Pragmatism, and American Performance in the Late 20th Century. LFB Scholarly Pub Llc, 2011. $80.00 ISBN: 978-1-5933-2465-0.
Nunns examines how free speech became a centerpiece of American identity during the 20th century and how ideas of freedom of expression came to a head during the Culture Wars in the 1980s and 90s. He explores four case histories: performance artist Karen Finley and her court case revolving around public funding for the arts; the lawsuits involving the film I am Curious (Yellow); the controversy surrounding a community's performance of Angels in America; and the racist songwriting of David Allen Coe. Acting Up demonstrates that free speech relies upon the cultural tides of the moment. The book offers a pragmatic approach to law, politics, and [*436] culture, by also investigating the founders of pragmatism (William James, Charles Sanders Peirce, John Dewey, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.), and examining how their ideas continue to shape the American intellectual landscape.
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Yates, Mark T. Prisoner Education Debates in Congress: Elite Discourse and Policymaking. LFB Scholarly Publishing Llc., 2012. $67.00 ISBN: 978-0-7546-2833-0.
Yates examines the role of congressional debates in generating support for current prisoner education policy. He explores the 1994 Crime Bill and 2008 Second Chance Act debate transcripts to discover political stakeholders’ attempts to influence and maintain social policy through the creation of legitimizing myths. These include the idea that prisoners are hopelessly flawed or that they have potential only as human capital in the marketplace. Education, when available, is often limited, narrow, and vocational. Counter-hegemonic discourse is also described as well as alternative educational paths such as critical pedagogy. This study indicates that key political leaders with seemingly disparate ideological backgrounds display surprisingly similar attitudes toward prisoners.
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Lincoln Press
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Ostrom, Elinor, and Dan H. Cole. Property in Land and Other Resources.Property in Land and Other Resources. Lincoln Press, 2011. $35.00 ISBN: 978-1-5584-4221-4.
Over the past several years, much has been written about property rights in land and natural resources by scholars in many disciplines including economics, political science, history, and law. This book, based on a 2010 Lincoln Institute conference, addresses the tendency in social science literature to oversimplify the concept of property rights by assuming that only two or three forms of property rights are appropriate for the effective use and conservation of resources. Instead it focuses on recent developments in our understanding of how various property systems are applied to and affect the use of scarce natural resources.
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[*437]
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New York University Press
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Fleming, James E., and Sanford Levinson. Evolution and Morality. New York University Press, 2012. $65.00 ISBN: 978-0-8147-7122-8.
Can theories of evolution explain the development of our capacity for moral judgment and the content of morality itself? If bad behavior punished by the criminal law is attributable to physical causes, rather than being intentional or voluntary as traditionally assumed, what are the implications for rethinking the criminal justice system? Is evolutionary theory and “nature talk,” at least as practiced to date, inherently conservative and resistant to progressive and feminist proposals for social changes to counter subordination and secure equality?
In Evolution and Morality, a group of contributors from philosophy, law, political science, history, and genetics address many of the philosophical, legal, and political issues raised by such questions. This insightful interdisciplinary volume examines the possibilities of a naturalistic ethics, the implications of behavioral morality for reform of the criminal law, the prospects for a biopolitical science, and the relationship between nature, culture, and social engineering.
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MacKenzie, Megan H. Female Soldiers in Sierre Leone: Sex, Security, and Post-Conflict Development. New York University Press, 2012. $49.00 ISBN: 978-0814761373
The eleven-year civil war in Sierra Leone from 1991 to 2002 was incomprehensibly brutal—it is estimated that half of all female refugees were raped and many thousands were killed. While the publicity surrounding sexual violence helped to create a general picture of women and girls as victims of the conflict, there has been little effort to understand female soldiers’ involvement in, and experience of, the conflict. Female Soldiers in Sierra Leone draws on interviews with 75 former female soldiers and over 20 local experts, providing a rare perspective on both the civil war and post-conflict development efforts in the country. Megan MacKenzie argues that post-conflict reconstruction is a highly gendered process, demonstrating that a clear recognition and understanding of the roles and experiences of female soldiers are central to both understanding the conflict and to crafting effective policy for the future.
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Norton & Company, Incorporated, W. W.
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Goffard, Christopher. You Will See Fire: A Search for Justice in Kenya. Norton & Company, Incorporated, W. W., 2011. $27.95 ISBN: 978-0-3930-7742-1.
Whether gunning down a warthog, raising the beams he'd hewn himself for a new church, or standing up for landless refugees and abused girls, Father John Kaiser was a figure larger than life. He was fierce in his commitments, devoted to the poor and displaced, and fearless what [*438] some would call reckless in the pursuit of justice. For this he was beloved by his parishioners, seen as a loose cannon by his superiors in the church, and despised by Kenya's strongmen under the tyrannical leadership of Daniel arap Moi. When Kaiser was discovered dead on a remote roadside in the bush, the FBI ruled it a suicide. Kenyans were sure he'd been murdered. In a new Kenya, post-Moi, it would fall to Charles Mbuthi Gathenji, a prominent dissident and the son of a man himself murdered for his beliefs, to find out what really happened to Father John Kaiser.
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Torrey, Fuller E. The Insanity Offense: How America's Failure to Treat the Seriously Mentally Ill Endangers Its Citizens. Norton & Company, Incorporated, W. W., 2011. $16.95 ISBN: 978-0-3933-4137-9.
E. Fuller Torrey, the author of the definitive guides to schizophrenia and manic depression, chronicles a disastrous swing in the balance of civil rights that has resulted in numerous violent episodes and left a vulnerable population of mentally ill people homeless and victimized. Interweaving in-depth accounts of landmark cases in California, Wisconsin, and North Carolina with a history of legislation and changes in the mental health care system, Torrey gives shape to the magnitude of our failure and outlines what needs to be done to reverse this ongoing—and accelerating—disaster. A new epilogue on the 2011 shooting in Tucson, Arizona, brings this tragic story up to date.
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Ohio University Press
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Scheiber, Harry N. Ohio Canal Era: A Case Study of Government and the Economy, 1820-1861. Ohio University Press, 2012. £25.95 ISBN: 978-0-8214-1979-3.
Ohio Canal Era, a rich analysis of state policies and their impact in directing economic change, is a classic on the subject of the pre–Civil War transportation revolution. This edition contains a new foreword by scholar Lawrence M. Friedman and a bibliographic note by the author. Professor Scheiber explores how Ohio—as a “public enterprise state,” creating state agencies and mobilizing public resources for transport innovation and control—led in the process of economic change before the Civil War. No other historical account of the period provides so full and insightful a portrayal of “law in action.” Scheiber reveals the important roles of American nineteenth- century government in economic policy-making, finance, administration, and entrepreneurial activities in support of economic development. His study is equally important as an economic history. Scheiber provides a full account of waves of technological innovation and of the transformation of Ohio’s commerce, agriculture, and industrialization in an era of hectic economic change. And he tells the intriguing story of how the earliest railroads of the Old Northwest were built and financed, finally confronting the state- owned canal system with a [*439] devastating competitive challenge. Amid the current debate surrounding “privatization,” “deregulation,” and the appropriate use of “industrial policy” by government to shape and channel the economy. Scheiber’s landmark study gives vital historical context to issues of privatization and deregulation that we confront in new forms today.
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Oxford University Press
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Garner, Bryan. Garner's Dictionary of Legal Usage: Third Edition. Oxford University Press, 2012. $65.00 ISBN: 978-0-1953-8420-8.
This new edition of Garner's Dictionary of Legal Usage discusses and analyzes modern legal vocabulary and style more thoroughly than any other contemporary reference work. Since the first edition, Bryan A. Garner has drawn on his unrivaled experience as a legal editor to refine his position on legal usage. The new Third Edition remains indispensable: Garner has updated entries throughout, while adding eight hundred new entries and new senses of existing entries, as well as thousands of new illustrative quotations from judicial opinions and leading lawbooks. Garner has also revised the selected bibliography, and expanded and updated cross-references to guide readers quickly and easily.
The GDLU now has much greater depth in particular areas of law, such as immigration and intellectual property. More examples from British English sources are included, to illustrate the similarities and differences between American and British English, and to aid readers using foreign common-law sources. Dozens of sets of near-synonyms that have long perplexed lawyers are now concisely defined and differentiated. Asterisks now precede words and phrases that are invariably inferior forms, making it easy for readers to tell which ones to avoid. A new category called Interpretation, Modes of, outlines the theories and defines the terminology of interpretation, also known as hermeneutics. Entries contain the most comprehensive glossary available for words and phrases related to legal interpretation. And, for the first time ever, sources are consistently cited throughout, with a solid majority of citations from post-2000. A new preface introduces the reader to this edition and discusses the extensive content that has been newly incorporated.
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Khosla , Madhav. The Indian Constitution: Oxford India Short Introductions. Oxford University Press, 2012. £7.99 ISBN: 978-0-1980-7538-7.
Giving identity to over a billion people, the Indian Constitution is one of the world's great [*440] political texts. Drafted over six decades ago, its endurance and operation have fascinated and surprised many. In this short introduction, Madhav Khosla brings to light its many features, aspirations, and controversies. How does the Constitution separate power between different political actors? What form of citizenship does it embrace? And how can it change? In answering questions such as these, Khosla unravels the document's remarkable and challenging journey, inviting readers to reflect upon the theory and practice of constitutionalism in the world's largest democracy.
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Rustad, Michael. Software Licensing: Principles and Practical Strategies. Oxford University Press, 2010. $200.00 ISBN: 978-0-1953-7619-7.
Software Licensing: Principles and Practical Strategies provides practitioners with a comprehensive analysis of the concepts and methods of software licensing with an emphasis on the contract and intellectual-property interface of this process. Author Michael L. Rustad examines key clauses and negotiating points that both licensors and licensees confront in licensing software, as well as provides insight into the larger business implications of software-licensing strategies.
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Princeton University Press
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Jenkins, Jeffery A., and Charles Stewart III. Fighting for the Speakership: The House and the Rise of Party Government. Princeton University Press, 2012. $35.00 ISBN: 978-0691156446.
The Speaker of the House of Representatives is the most powerful partisan figure in the contemporary U.S. Congress. How this came to be, and how the majority party in the House has made control of the speakership a routine matter, is far from straightforward. Fighting for the Speakership provides a comprehensive history of how Speakers have been elected in the U.S. House since 1789, arguing that the organizational politics of these elections were critical to the construction of mass political parties in America and laid the groundwork for the role they play in setting the agenda of Congress today. Jeffery Jenkins and Charles Stewart show how the speakership began as a relatively weak office, and how votes for Speaker prior to the Civil War often favored regional interests over party loyalty. While struggle, contention, and deadlock over House organization were common in the antebellum era, such instability vanished with the outbreak of war, as the majority party became an "organizational cartel" capable of controlling with certainty the selection of the Speaker and other key House officers. This organizational cartel has survived Gilded Age partisan strife, Progressive Era challenge, and conservative coalition politics to guide speakership elections through the present day. Fighting for the [*441] Speakership reveals how struggles over House organization prior to the Civil War were among the most consequential turning points in American political history.
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Routledge Press
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Ali, Shalah F. Resolving Disputes in the Asia-Pacific Region: International Arbitration and Mediation in East Asia and the West. Routledge Press, 2010. $140.00 ISBN: 978-0-4155-8372-5.
How diverse cultures approach conflict in the context of the integration of global markets is a new arena for research and practice. To date, most of the research on international arbitration has focused exclusively on Western models of arbitration as practiced in Europe and North America. While such studies have accurately reflected the geographic foci of international arbitration practice in the late twentieth century, the number of international arbitrations conducted in East Asia has recently been growing steadily and on par with growth in Western regions.
Resolving Disputes in the Asia-Pacific Region presents empirical research about the attitudes and perceptions of over 115 arbitrators, judges, lawyers and members of the rapidly expanding arbitration community in China, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, Singapore, and Malaysia as well as North America and Europe. The book covers both international commercial arbitration and "alternative" techniques such as mediation, providing an empirical analysis of how both types of dispute resolution are conducted in the East Asian context. The book examines the history and cultural context surrounding preferred methods of dispute resolution in the East Asian region and sheds light on the various approaches to international arbitration across these diverse regions.
This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of international arbitration and dispute resolution, comparative and Asian law, as well as anyone dealing with potential conflict in international business relationships in East Asia.
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Stanford Law Books
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Guest, Stephen. Ronald Dworkin. Stanford Law Books, 2012. $23.95 ISBN: 978-0-8047-7233-4.
Ronald Dworkin is widely accepted as the most important and most controversial Anglo-American jurist of the past forty years. And this same-named volume on his work has [*442] become a minor classic in the field, offering the most complete analysis and integration of Dworkin's work to date. This third edition offers a substantial revision of earlier texts and, most importantly, incorporates discussion of Dworkin's recent masterwork Justice for Hedgehogs.
Accessibly written for a wide readership, this book captures the complexity and depth of thought of Ronald Dworkin. Displaying a long-standing commitment to Dworkin's work, Stephen Guest clearly highlights the scholar's key theories to illustrate a guiding principle over the course of Dworkin's work: that there are right answers to questions of moral value. In assessing this principle, Guest also expands his analysis of contemporary critiques of Dworkin. The third edition includes an updated and complete bibliography of Dworkin's work.
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Porter, Katherine. Broke: How Debt Bankrupts the Middle Class. Stanford Law Books, 2012. $24.95 ISBN: 978-0-8047-7701-8.
About 1.5 million households filed bankruptcy in the last year, making bankruptcy as common as college graduation and divorce. The recession has pushed more and more families into financial collapse—with unemployment, declines in retirement wealth, and falling house values destabilizing the American middle class. Broke explores the consequences of this unprecedented growth in consumer debt and shows how excessive borrowing undermines the prosperity of middle class America.
While the recession that began in mid-2007 has widened the scope of the financial pain caused by overindebtedness, the problem predated that large-scale economic meltdown. And by all indicators, consumer debt will be a defining feature of middle-class families for years to come. The staples of middle-class life—going to college, buying a house, starting a small business—carry with them more financial risk than ever before, requiring more borrowing and new riskier forms of borrowing. This book reveals the people behind the statistics, looking closely at how people get to the point of serious financial distress, the hardships of dealing with overwhelming debt, and the difficulty of righting one's financial life. In telling the stories of financial failures, this book exposes an all-too-real part of middle-class life that is often lost in the success stories that dominate the American economic narrative.
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Sarfaty, Galit A. Values in Translation: Human Rights and the Culture of the World Bank. Stanford Law Books, 2012. $24.95 ISBN: 978-0-8047-6352-3.
The World Bank is the largest lender to developing countries, making loans worth over $20 billion per year to finance development projects around the globe. To guide its investments, the Bank has adopted a number of social and environmental policies, yet it has never instituted any overarching policy on human rights. Despite the potential human rights impact of Bank projects—the forced displacement of indigenous peoples resulting from a Bank-financed dam [*443] project, for example—the issue of human rights remains marginal in the Bank's operational practices.
Values in Translation analyzes the organizational culture of the World Bank and addresses the question of why it has not adopted a human rights framework. Academics and social advocates have typically focused on legal restrictions in the Bank's Articles of Agreement. This work's anthropological analysis sheds light on internal obstacles including the employee incentive system and a clash of expertise between lawyers and economists over how to define human rights and justify their relevance to the Bank's mission.
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Texas Tech University Press
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Johnson, Tekla Agbala Ali. Free Radical: Ernest Chambers, Black Power, and the Politics of Race. Texas Tech University Press, 2009. $39.95 ISBN: 978-0-8967-2729-8.
A political biography of Nebraska state senator Ernest (Ernie) Chambers, investigating the tumultuous local and national political climate for African Americans from the late twentieth century to today. Salem's own assistant professor of history, Dr. Tekla Ali Johnson, explores the fascinating story of the radical and revered Nebraska state senator, Ernest Chambers. After his election to the Nebraska Unicameral, Chambers spent the next 40 years fighting police brutality, police murders and for the improvement of the lives of African American and the poor in Omaha, Neb. "Free Radical" is the first published biography of Chambers' career, a powerful account that documents an intellectual's and a community's struggle to repel the attacks of those who would abuse their authority against the African American citizenry.
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University of Alaska Press
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Case, David S and David A. Voluck. Alaska Natives and American Laws: Third Edition. University of Alaska Press, 2012. $85.00 ISBN: 978-1-6022-3175-7.
Now in its third edition, Alaska Natives and
American Laws is still the only work of its kind, canvassing federal law
and its history as applied to the indigenous peoples of Alaska. Covering
1867 through 2011, the authors offer lucid explanations of the
often-tangled history of policy and law as applied to Alaska’s first
peoples. Divided conceptually into four broad themes of indigenous
rights to land, subsistence, services, and sovereignty, the book offers
a thorough and balanced analysis of the evolution of these rights in the
forty-ninth state. [*444]
This third edition brings the volume fully up to date, with consideration of the broader evolution of indigenous rights in international law and recent developments on the ground in Alaska.
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University of Chicago Press
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Hutchinson, Dennis J., David A Strauss, and Geoffrey R Stone. The Supreme Court Review, 2010. University of Chicago Press, 2011. $70.00 ISBN: 978-0-2263-6326-4.
Politics is at its most dramatic during debates over important pieces of legislation. It is thus no stretch to refer to legislation as a living, breathing force in American politics. And while debates over legislative measures begin before an item is enacted, they also endure long afterward, when the political legacy of a law becomes clear. "Living Legislation" provides fresh insights into contemporary American politics and public policy. Of particular interest to the contributors to this volume is the question of why some laws stand the test of time while others are eliminated, replaced, or significantly amended. Among the topics the essays discuss are how laws emerge from - and effect change within - coalition structures, the effectiveness of laws at mediating partisan conflicts, and the ways in which laws interact with broader shifts in the political environment. An essential addition to the study of politics, "Living Legislation" enhances our understanding of democracy, governance, and power.
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University Press of Kansas
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Charles, Douglas M. The FBI'S Obscene File. University Press of Kansas, 2009. $42.95 ISBN: 978-0-7006-1825-5.
What do pop artist Andy Warhol, sex researcher Alfred Kinsey, and cinematic comedians Abbott and Costello have in common They all found a prominent place in the FBIs Obscene File. In this startling new study Douglas Charles reveals how, for more than seventy years, FBI officials placed obscenity, pornography, and the politics of morality among their topmost concerns. Illuminating this largely neglected aspect of FBI history, Charles charts the evolution of the Bureaus efforts to combat the spread of obscenity and its perceived insidious effects. He contends that, especially during the five decades under J. Edgar Hoover, these efforts became a surprisingly high priority and at times expressly wielded for political ends, even as Hoover hid [*445] the file from public view in order to preserve the Bureaus squeaky-clean image. Charles recounts how the Obscene File was conceived and organized by Hoover and describes its contents including magazines, films, and artwork, along with dossiers on offenders. He examines the FBIs targeting of 1940s and 50s race music with its depictions of lewd and licentious acts in obscene and foul language. He describes how it collected photos of activities at gay bars and prosecuted businesses that published obscene pro-gay magazines, as well as participated in the Lavender Scare that targeted gays in the federal government. He also details the FBIs efforts to short-circuit the distribution of the film Deep Throat and disrupt the pornographic movie industry. On the political front, Charles tells how Hoover found a fellow crusader in Richard Nixon, who hijacked the obscenity issue to rally an electoral base weary of an anything-goes decade. But as changing mores and laws redefined obscenity, subsequent directors moved away from Hoovers approach and focused more on mob control of pornography, kiddie porn, and the war on drugs. Subsequently, the Obscene File mostly fell into disuse during the presidencies of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, the latter president unable to gain any traction with his own obscenity initiatives. Taking in the whole scope of these operations, Charless insightful history offers a previously unseen look at a major facet of FBI activities and contributes significantly to our understanding of Hoover and his legacy. This item ships from multiple locations.
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