To obtain discounts on selected books, enter promotional code YY269 into the space provided on the shopping cart. Discounts will be computed on the shopping cart once the code is entered.

Discounts are valid only in the United States, Canada, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.

This book is the first to gather in a single volume concise biographies of the most eminent men and women in the history of American law. Encompassing a wide range of individuals who have devised, replenished, expounded, and explained law, The Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law presents succinct and lively entries devoted to more than 700 subjects selected for their significant and lasting influence on American law.

Casting a wide net, editor Roger K. Newman includes individuals from around the country, from colonial times to the present, encompassing the spectrum of ideologies from left-wing to right, and including a diversity of racial, ethnic, and religious groups. Entries are devoted to the living and dead, the famous and infamous, many who upheld the law and some who broke it. Supreme Court justices, private practice lawyers, presidents, professors, journalists, philosophers, novelists, prosecutors, and others—the individuals in the volume are as diverse as the nation itself.

Entries written by close to 600 expert contributors outline basic biographical facts on their subjects, offer well-chosen anecdotes and incidents to reveal accomplishments, and include brief bibliographies. Readers will turn to this dictionary as an authoritative and useful resource, but they will also discover a volume that delights and entertains.

Listed in The Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law:

John Ashcroft

Robert H. Bork

Bill Clinton

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Patrick Henry

J. Edgar Hoover

James Madison

Thurgood Marshall

Sandra Day O’Connor

Janet Reno

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

John T. Scopes

O. J. Simpson

Alexis de Tocqueville

Scott Turow

And more than 700 others

Roger K. Newman teaches at the Columbia University School of Journalism and has devoted nearly 40 years to studying and writing about the Supreme Court and American law. He is author of Hugo Black: A Biography, which won the Scribes book award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer prize, and editor-in-chief of The Constitution and Its Amendments (4 volumes). He lives in the Bronx, New York.

Jonathan Zittrain’s extraordinary book pieces together the engine that has catapulted the Internet ecosystem into the prominence it has today—and explains that it is sputtering precisely because of its runaway success. With the unwitting help of consumers, the Internet is on a path to a lockdown, a closing off of opportunities and innovation.

This engrossing book explores the profound implications of personal information on the Internet, preserved forever even if it is false, biased, or humiliating. Brimming with examples of online gossip, slander, and rumor, the book discusses the tensions between privacy and free speech and proposes how to balance the two. What information about you is on the Internet? ...

This provocative book shows how the legitimate desire to use the law to protect women from domestic abuse has unintentionally resulted in a substantial reduction of autonomy and privacy for both men and women.

Our failure to appreciate the importance of the public domain—the realm of material that is free for anyone to use without permission or fee—limits free speech, digital creativity, and scientific innovation, argues the author of this book. The public domain is under siege, and James Boyle explains why and how we must protect it.

In a doctor’s examining room, off-the-record with a journalist, in an attorney’s office, speaking with a clergy member—in each situation we expect confidentiality. This book examines the full range of today’s privacy issues, what secrets the laws protect, how rights of privacy have been eroded, and why these matters should concern every Americ...

Every day we make decisions on topics ranging from the personal investments we select to the schools we pick for our children to the foods we eat to the causes we champion. Unfortunately, as authors Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein astutely observe, we don’t always choose well. The reason, the authors explain, is that we all are susceptible to cognitive b...

This systematic exploration of the reasons for and against the creation of constitutional courts is rich in detail and offers an ambitious theory to justify the European preference for them instead of the decentralized model used in the United States.

This authoritative edition of the complete texts of the Federalist Papers, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Articles of Confederation is accompanied by essays in which leading scholars provide historical context and thematic background.

The Abu Ghraib scandal. Skyrocketing prison populations. Controversial taser incidents. America’s attitudes toward criminals and punishment have drastically changed, says the author of this alarming book, and she explores the cultural roots, significance, and far-reaching implications of the new focus on retribution.

Stephen Cox tells the story of the American prison—its politics, its sex, its violence, its inability to control itself—and its idealization in American popular culture.

Despite America’s commitment to civil rights from the earliest days of nationhood, examples of injustices against minorities stain many pages of U.S. history. The battle for racial, ethnic, and gender fairness remains unfinished. This comprehensive book traces the history of legal efforts to achieve civil rights for all Americans, beginning with the years leadi...

From the prize-winning author of Wartime Lies, an anatomy of the infamous prosecution of a Jewish officer attached to the French army’s General Staff, with profound implications for our own time.

How did a nation so famously associated with freedom become internationally identified with imprisonment? In this timely and provocative study, Caleb Smith argues that the dehumanization inherent in captivity has always been at the heart of American civil society.

What began as the obscure local case of two Italian immigrant anarchists accused of robbery and murder soon flared into an unprecedented cause célèbre. This book is the first to reveal the full international scope of the Sacco-Vanzetti affair, tracing its enduring implications for America at home and abroad.

Books on Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss abound, as countless scholars have labored to uncover the facts behind Chambers’s shocking accusation before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in the summer of 1948—that Alger Hiss, a former rising star in the State Department, had been a Communist and engaged in espionage. In this highly origina...

The decline of the unions and collective bargaining and other factors have given rise to a feeling of powerlessness for the average American worker. This book seeks to encourage current trends toward employer self-regulation as a first step towards a new paradigm of workplace governance for the twenty-first century

This timely book offers a comprehensive overview of health care practices in developed countries and relates this comparative research to national policy debates that have heated up under the Obama administration.

In this innovative book, Lee Ann Fennell challenges us to radically re-conceive our ideas about residential property and property law to help solve critical issues of neighborhood control and community composition that have been simmering unresolved for decades.

This timely and important book aims to better understand how cities work by highlighting the multiple connections between land use/development policies and policing policies, leading to new ways to think about the organization of cities.

Property Outlaws puts forth the intriguingly counterintuitive proposition that, in the case of both tangible and intellectual property law, breaking the law can lead to an improvement in legal regulation.

Fierce debates about academic freedom in American higher education have become more frequent in recent years. The authors of this discerning book explore the origins and guiding principles of academic freedom, correct misperceptions about its reach, and pave the way for more fruitful debates based on a common understanding of its purpose.

This is the story of a groundbreaking Supreme Court decision in 1941 that changed the field of Indian law. Threatened by railroad claims to their lands, Arizona’s Hualapai people engaged in a legal battle, emerged victorious, and along the way introduced revolutionary new ways of thinking about all native peoples, their property, and their past.

This book demolishes myths about America’s westward expansion and uncovers a shocking historical pattern of governmental deception and malfeasance in treaties signed—and just as often breached—with Native Americans. The book explores how millions of square miles of Native lands and resources were fraudulently acquired, who participated, why, and the...

Why, almost twenty years after passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, are so many disabled people still unemployed? Are restrictive court decisions to blame? This book examines the history of the disability rights movement, the current state of the law, and how new policies could help to empower people with disabilities.

This provocative book addresses the legal questions raised by the Supreme Court’s ruling that private organizations like the Boy Scouts of America have the right to expel gay members. The authors analyze how the law deals with discrimination in private organizations—and how it should.

Based on forty years of field work by one of the world’s leading scholars on Bedouin culture, this book is the first to show how Bedouin society provides for its own law and order in the traditional absence of any centralized authority or law enforcement agency.

This fascinating book is about land, belonging, and the mortgage—and how people of different cultural backgrounds understand them in Africa. Anthropologist Parker Shipton shows why Western notions of property and credit don’t apply in rural African cultures and why international development efforts are often misguided.

This book makes a passionate plea to revive the humanities’ lost tradition of preparing young people to address life’s most important question, what living is for. Tony Kronman explores how political correctness and the research ideal have led the humanities astray, and he argues that the study of life’s meaning is an essential component in higher e...

This comprehensive book brings to light the quiet war that has been raging in the courts, federal agencies, and Congress—a war that threatens to allow federal regulation to preempt state common law. The author explains the legal and policy issues, describes the dangers to consumers, and offers balanced solutions to preemption issues.

This book investigates the increasing reliance of federal and state regulatory agencies on litigation as a means of regulation. Analyzing three major case studies, the authors conclude that litigation is an inappropriate means for establishing substantive regulatory provisions, and they suggest reforms to help curb the practice.

In this level-headed analysis of the pharmaceutical industry and how we regulate it, Richard Epstein asks: are we protecting patients or blocking the development of useful new drugs? He looks closely at the maze of laws and regulations that affect pharmaceutical operations and concludes that while some make good sense, others hinder innovation and threaten the vitality of the industry.

This book—the first ever devoted to the analysis of promissory fraud—is an indispensable guide for those who practice or teach contract law. The authors explore what promises say from a variety of perspectives, identify mistakes that courts make in promissory fraud cases, and offer a new theory for how such cases should be handled.

When does the law permit you to change your mind and reverse a decision you have made? In this masterful book, a foremost authority on American contract law identifies and discusses the general principles and legal rules that bear on this question. E. Allan Farnsworth also offers suggestions to improve the laws that pertain to regretted decisions.

By analyzing five cases studies on pesticides, plastics, hazardous waste sites, vehicle emissions, and nuclear weapons testing, environmental expert John Wargo envisions a safer world through greener intelligence.

Through vivid tales of the pollution wars, a veteran environmental advocate shows that the Environmental Protection Agency is so big and remote that it must fail the environment and our society. David Schoenbrod reaches the surprising conclusion that we should strip the EPA of its power to dictate to the nation and replace it with “bottom-up” environmental protection now.

<...

A controversial work that attacks the system that allows Congress to delegate its legislative power to unelected administrative agencies and bureaucrats. Contending that delegation corrodes accountability, fails to produce effective public policy, and is unconstitutional, David Schoenbrod has written the first book that shows how delegation can be stopped.

This indispensable guide explains what every manager should know and do with respect to the environment. Filled with examples and pragmatic how-to advice, the book shows how corporations can meet environmental challenges and become more profitable by building eco-thinking into their business strategies.

Troubled by the failure of conservationists and environmentalists to provide a persuasive vision of the universal benefits when conservation succeeds, activist Eric T. Freyfogle offers a thought-provoking critique of the conservation movement. He addresses the real meaning of good land use and identifies six key tasks that those who care about healthy lands must address.

In this powerful book, a renowned environmental leader warns that despite all the international negotiations of the past two decades, efforts to protect Earth’s environment are not succeeding. He explains why this is so and presents eight specific steps that governments and citizens can take to achieve a sustainable future. For this new paperback edition the author has added an Afterword tha...

The author of Red Sky at Morning would be the first to agree that we are in deep environmental trouble, but he offers hope that there is still time to avert global catastrophe. Gus Speth explores a wide variety of promising and even radical ideas for transforming modern capitalism so as to protect and restore the natural world.

How does a nongovernmental organization (NGO) empower itself in today’s world? In this insightful book, the author applies a new theoretical perspective in case studies of NGOs in the Philippines. Raymond Bryant focuses on the concept of moral capital and analyzes how perceptions of NGOs as moral and altruistic can translate into social power.

Americans are profoundly divided over same-sex marriage, and now that gay civil unions and marriages are legal in some states, the debates have become increasingly vitriolic. In this book Andrew Koppelman draws on legal precedent to suggest workable and humane legal solutions to the problems that arise when gay couples cross state borders.

In this eye-opening look at today’s tension between public morality and individual privacy, legal scholar Elizabeth Foley warns that we have abandoned crucial constitutional principles. She analyzes urgent contemporary issues—abortion, gay marriage, cloning, and others—and calls for a return to original, revolutionary principles of limited government and individual liberty.

Taking up the difficult and divisive topic of justice for those with disabilities, Mark Stein assesses competing theories and argues that, overall, utilitarianism performs better than egalitarian theories in dealing with the problems in this area. Utilitarian theory, he concludes, does more to place resources where they will do the most good.

In this important book, one of our boldest and most original thinkers charges that conventional explanations of poverty are mistaken, and that the anti-poverty policies built upon them are doomed to fail. Charles Karelis proposes a new and persuasive explanation for what keeps people poor and shows how this fresh perspective can reinspire the long-stalled campaign against poverty.

In this important book, one of the world’s experts on human rights issues explores the state of religious freedom around the globe. Father Robert Drinan finds that the U.N., the U.S., and the international community have fallen short, but he offers hopeful guidelines for promoting religious freedom and encouraging greater tolerance.



 

Widely known and respected for his work in international human rights, Father Robert F. Drinan here describes the history of the human rights movement since World War II and the obstacles its faces today. With clarity and force, Father Drinan discusses every important human rights issue, the performance of the United States and the United Nations, and how leaders and individuals can mobilize for a...

In this generous anthology, eminent authorities assess what has and has not been accomplished in the field of sexual harassment law since Catharine MacKinnon published her pathbreaking work on the subject twenty-five years ago.

This powerful book is essential reading for everyone concerned with education in America. The authors examine school reform efforts, how lawyers and educators have shaped the direction of our schools, and what they could be doing to collaborate more effectively. They consider six crucial reform initiatives, including school desegregation, school finance reform, and education of immigrant children....

This valuable book explains why schools, welfare agencies, and other important state and local institutions have come to be controlled by attorneys and judges rather than by governors and mayors. The authors discuss why this has resulted in worse service to the public and what can be done to restore control of these programs to elected—and accountable—officials.

With the radical changes in information production that the Internet has introduced, we stand at a crucial moment of transition, says Yochai Benkler in this important book on the new information economy and our socio-political future. He discusses the legal and policy issues that confront us and warns that the Internet’s promise of greater individual freedom, cultural diversity, political di...

Whether stem cell research lives up to its promise will largely depend upon new laws as yet unwritten, says the author of this timely book. He identifies, analyzes, and proposes answers to controversial legal questions concerning cloning, patenting stem cells lines, government funding of research that destroys embryos, and much more.

How are juries selected in the United States? What forces influence juries in making their decisions? In this book a prominent expert on constitutional law examines these and other issues concerning the American jury system, pointing out the important social role juries play in legitimizing and affirming the justice system.

This book examines both the constitutional jurisprudence of Supreme Court justice Louis D. Brandeis and one of his most famous and controversial opinions, Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins (1938). This landmark decision led to a significant relocation of power from federal to state courts, and, says the author, it provides a window on the legal, political, and ideological battles over the feder...

In 1959, the Supreme Court ushered in a new era of Indian law, which recognizes Indian tribes as permanent governments within the federal constitutional system and, on the whole, honors old promises to the Indians. Drawing together historical sources such as the records of treaty negotiations with the Indians, classic political theory on the nature of sovereignty, and anthropological studies of so...

An eminent humanist scholar here examines the traditions of interpretation of the two “great codes” we live by: the Bible and the American Constitution. Jaroslav Pelikan compares the methods of official interpreters—the Christian Church and the Supreme Court—demonstrating how the approaches of each can illuminate the other.

In this important book, a leading constitutional theorist offers a compelling defense of American constitutional practice. Lawrence G. Sager views judges as active partners in the enterprise of securing political justice and describes the process of constitutional adjudication as a promising and distinctly democratic addition to that enterprise.

A leading scholar of constitutional law delivers an incisive and brilliant new account of the Bill of Rights and explodes conventional wisdom about our most basic charter of liberty. Akhil Reed Amar not only illuminates the text, structure, and history of the 1789 Bill but also argues that its present character owes more to antislavery activists of the Reconstruction era than to the Founding Fathe...

Under the banners of the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments, the Supreme Court has constitutionalized a vast amount of criminal procedure law in ways that often reward the guilty while hurting the innocent. In this sweeping and provocative book, a distinguished constitutional scholar critiques these developments and reconceptualizes the basic foundations of the field. Addressed primarily to lawye...

In this provocative book, one of our most eminent political scientists questions the extent to which the American Constitution furthers democratic goals. Robert Dahl reveals the Constitution’s potentially antidemocratic elements and explains why they are there, compares the American constitutional system to other democratic systems, and explores how we might alter our political system to ach...

In this book, a prominent legal scholar takes a frank and provocative look at how and why the U. S. Supreme Court, in its review and interpretation of our fundamental law, works as a dynamic and responsive key to our enduring democracy. Writing in an engaging and accessible manner, Harry H. Wellington offers fascinating examples of the Court's activities, in particular showing how it has addressed...

This book compares for the first time the freedoms and protections of members of the United States Congress with those of Britain’s Parliament. Tracing the remarkable history of legislative privilege, Josh Chafetz shows how and why these special freedoms evolved and what they tell us about such important constitutional issues as the separation of powers.

In this fascinating history of the origins of the Bill of Rights, Pulitzer prize-winning historian Leonard W. Levy offers a panoramic view of the liberties secured by the first ten amendments to the Constitution. Levy illuminates the behind-the-scenes maneuverings, public rhetoric, and political motivations of James Madison and others who overcame fierce opposition to ensure the ratification of th...

This systematic exploration of the reasons for and against the creation of constitutional courts is rich in detail and offers an ambitious theory to justify the European preference for them instead of the decentralized model used in the United States.

This authoritative edition of the complete texts of the Federalist Papers, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Articles of Confederation is accompanied by essays in which leading scholars provide historical context and thematic background.

This provocative book presents a theory of the First Amendment’s development during the twentieth century into an instrument for social progress and defends a cultural role for the courts.

In this important book, Steven J. Heyman presents a theory of the First Amendment that seeks to overcome the conflict between free speech and human dignity. This liberal humanist theory recognizes a strong right to freedom of expression while also providing protection against the most serious forms of assaultive speech. Heyman then uses the theory to illuminate a wid...

This lively historical examination of American federalism concludes that the founding fathers could never agree on the proper balance of federal vs. state power. The constitutional law of federalism is therefore not rooted in the Constitution or any “original” understanding of it, but in the personal values and assumptions of its interpreters, Edward Purc...

Can the Constitution change with the times without forsaking the framers’ original intent? In this thoughtful book, Constitutional scholar Kermit Roosevelt enters the debate over judicial activism and explains in plain language how the Constitution can be a constant and an organic document. He shines a whole new light on today’s most controversial federal cases.

 

The gunfight at the OK Corral is legendary—but what happened once the shooting ended? This book tells the nearly unknown story of the prosecution of Wyatt Earp, his brothers, and Doc Holiday following the gunfight and shows how a talented defense attorney saved them from the gallows.

Part history of philosophy, part philosophical investigation, this book rewrites central chapters in the history of jurisprudence by uncovering a continuity among four great legal philosophers: Plato, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Hobbes, and John Austin. In their theories of law, the author argues, these thinkers represent successive chapters in a single fascinating story.

 

 

This fascinating book examines the history of the Yale Law School from its nineteenth-century beginnings as a proprietary school through modern times. Distinguished scholars trace notable developments in Law School history while illuminating its profound impact on the development of legal education in the United States.

This is the story of a groundbreaking Supreme Court decision in 1941 that changed the field of Indian law. Threatened by railroad claims to their lands, Arizona’s Hualapai people engaged in a legal battle, emerged victorious, and along the way introduced revolutionary new ways of thinking about all native peoples, their property, and their past.

This highly entertaining biography draws a full portrait of one of the most colorful figures in English political history, John Wilkes. Remembered as the father of the British free press, a champion of liberty, and a hero to American colonists, Wilkes enjoyed a rancorous political career (involving duels, imprisonments, and a famous massacre) as well as a notorious private life.

Neaira grew up in a Corinthian brothel in the fourth century B.C., became a high-priced courtesan and a sex slave, then settled into a thirty-year relationship with Stephanos of Athens. But next she found herself in court, charged with transgressing Athens’ marriage laws. This book reconstructs the amazing facts of Neaira’s life and trial, illuminating the social, legal, and cultural w...

In this highly original and provocative book, Kahn applies the insights of modern cultural theory to the rule of law. Examining the great constitutional case of Marbury v. Madison (1803), he contends that this Supreme Court decision initiated the rule of law in our national political life and profoundly affected American imagination, politics, and history. Today, Kahn shows, the rule of law...

This groundbreaking book is the first to tell the story of the struggle to end slave trading between states in antebellum America. If the federal government had the authority to regulate interstate commerce, why wasn’t that power invoked to terminate slave trafficking? The author offers insights into Congress, the courts, abolitionists, and the issues that led to secession and the Civil War....

This book—a monumental history of American law in the twentieth century—is a successor to the author’s landmark work A History of American Law. It chronicles the explosion of law over the past century into almost every aspect of American life and the extent to which social transformation has contributed to significant shifts within the legal system.

What does the Constitution say about acquiring and governing new territories? The authors of this book view America’s acquisition of territories during the last two hundred years through the lens of constitutionality and offer some surprising conclusions.

During its first decades as a nation, the United States encouraged the smuggling of European inventions and artisans to the New World. At the same time, the young Republic was developing policies to protect its own industrial innovations. Trade Secrets traces America’s contradictory approach to industrial espionage from colonial days through the age of Jackson.

What exactly does it mean to prove a person guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt?” In this enlightening book James Q. Whitman digs deep into the history of the law to discover that “reasonable doubt” was originally not intended to protect the accused but to make convictions easier. He discusses the troubling implications of the way we use this do...

What began as the obscure local case of two Italian immigrant anarchists accused of robbery and murder soon flared into an unprecedented cause célèbre. This book is the first to reveal the full international scope of the Sacco-Vanzetti affair, tracing its enduring implications for America at home and abroad.

From the prize-winning author of Wartime Lies, an anatomy of the infamous prosecution of a Jewish officer attached to the French army’s General Staff, with profound implications for our own time.

Books on Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss abound, as countless scholars have labored to uncover the facts behind Chambers’s shocking accusation before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in the summer of 1948—that Alger Hiss, a former rising star in the State Department, had been a Communist and engaged in espionage. In this highly origina...

This book demolishes myths about America’s westward expansion and uncovers a shocking historical pattern of governmental deception and malfeasance in treaties signed—and just as often breached—with Native Americans. The book explores how millions of square miles of Native lands and resources were fraudulently acquired, who participated, why, and the...

This book is a detailed legal and historical examination of presidential power. The authors look at the theory of the unitary executive as practiced in every administration from Washington to Bush. Discovering consistent patterns in presidential practices, the book has important implications for today’s debates over the extent of executive power.

A veteran foreign correspondent investigates the United Nations' failure to confront genocide in Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur, and exposes the role of United Nations officials in these humanitarian catastrophes.

One of America’s most distinguished defenders of civil liberties here presents measures that will prevent terrorism and still uphold our legal, moral, and humanitarian values. Rejecting approaches toward terrorists that are either too compassionate or too harsh, Alan M. Dershowitz offers proposals to combat terrorism that strike a balance between security and liberty.

The Abu Ghraib scandal. Skyrocketing prison populations. Controversial taser incidents. America’s attitudes toward criminals and punishment have drastically changed, says the author of this alarming book, and she explores the cultural roots, significance, and far-reaching implications of the new focus on retribution.

Stephen Cox tells the story of the American prison—its politics, its sex, its violence, its inability to control itself—and its idealization in American popular culture.

How did a nation so famously associated with freedom become internationally identified with imprisonment? In this timely and provocative study, Caleb Smith argues that the dehumanization inherent in captivity has always been at the heart of American civil society.

Based on forty years of field work by one of the world’s leading scholars on Bedouin culture, this book is the first to show how Bedouin society provides for its own law and order in the traditional absence of any centralized authority or law enforcement agency.

This fascinating book is about land, belonging, and the mortgage—and how people of different cultural backgrounds understand them in Africa. Anthropologist Parker Shipton shows why Western notions of property and credit don’t apply in rural African cultures and why international development efforts are often misguided.

A leading legal thinker confronts the predictable panics that follow terrorist attacks and proposes an “emergency constitution” that will place new checks and balances on the abuse of presidential power. His common-sense plan grants the government extraordinary powers to prevent a second strike in the short run, but protects our civil liberties from destruction over the longer run.

Did the Supreme Court’s intervention in the 2000 election decision violate the rule of law? Did it inaugurate an era of super-politicized jurisprudence? In this lively book, preeminent legal scholars from across the political spectrum debate the long-term effects of Bush v. Gore.

In this provocative book, two leading law professors challenge the existing campaign reform agenda and present a new initiative that avoids the mistakes of the past. Ackerman and Ayres work out the operating details of their plan, anticipate problems, design safeguards, suggest overseers, and show how their proposals satisfy constitutional requirements.

In this provocative book, two leading political thinkers offer a proposal to energize the electoral process—a new national holiday to be held each presidential election year, during which people engage in structured debates about issues and candidates. They show the feasibility of their idea by discussing the experiments that have preceded it and the economic, organizational, and political i...

In this timely and important book, a leading legal and political philosopher examines the renewed possibilities for the spread of democratic liberalism now that the Cold War has ended and new orders emerge after the recent revolutions in Eastern Europe. Bruce A. Ackerman argues that the creation of a democratic federal Europe and new constitutions for countries in Eastern Europe would help secure ...

Must we resign ourselves to a growing chasm between rich and poor? Bruce Ackerman and Anne Alstott propose an innovative alternative in this thought-provoking book: an eighty thousand dollar grant for every qualifying young adult. The authors analyze this plan from many perspectives and argue that such a citizen’s stake would open the way to a society that is more democratic, productive, and...

In this pioneering work, Guido Calabresi develops a framework for evaluating different systems of accident law. Defining the goal of accident law as the maximum reduction of accident and accident avoidance costs that can be achieved fairly, he examines ten political and economic choices implied in various approaches to reducing these costs. Calabresi then considers two fundamental problems all sys...

In this famous treatise, a Supreme Court Justice describes the conscious and unconscious processes by which a judge decides a case. He discusses the sources of information to which he appeals for guidance and analyzes the contribution that considerations of precedent, logical consistency, custom, social welfare, and standards of justice and morals have in shaping his decisions.

This clear and direct book by two distinguished professors of law describes and analyzes civil litigation in the United States. Geoffrey C. Hazard, Jr., and Michele Taruffo discuss specific details and broader themes of American civil litigation, explaining (without legalese) jury trial, the adversary system, the power of courts to make law as well as to "declare" it, and the role of civil justice...

A classic in American constitutional history, Max Farrand's famous account of the Federal Convention presents a vivid analysis of the conditions, convictions, and the men who framed the Constitution of the United States.

A classic in American constitutional history, Max Farrand’s famous account of the Federal Convention presents a vivid analysis of the conditions, the convictions, and the men who framed the Constitution of the United States.  This basic work clarifies the intentions of the Founding Fathers and sheds light on the many issues of 1787 that are of vital importance today.

Edited by James Hutson, this supplement to Max Farrand's authoritative Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 includes documentary material discovered since the appearance of the 1937 edition of the Records.

Every day we make decisions on topics ranging from the personal investments we select to the schools we pick for our children to the foods we eat to the causes we champion. Unfortunately, as authors Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein astutely observe, we don’t always choose well. The reason, the authors explain, is that we all are susceptible to cognitive b...

This fast-paced account of the history of the FBI presents the first balanced and complete portrait of the powerful and oft-criticized institution. Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones offers a new take on the origins and mission of the bureau, the significance of J. Edgar Hoover’s term as director, the bureau’s pre-emptive anti-terrorist capabilities before and after 9...

This reader-friendly quotation book is unique in its focus on modern and American quotations.  It is also the first to use state-of-the-art research methods to capture famous quotations and to trace sources of quotations to their true origins.  It contains more than 12,000 entries not only from literary and historical sources but also from popular culture, sports, computers, po...

This is a comprehensive account of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, told for the first time by an Iraqi insider. Ali Allawi, former Iraqi Minister of Defense and Finance, writes from the perspective of both principal and observer, shedding new light on the story behind the invasion, the shambolic aftermath and attempts at stabilization, and why events have failed to unfold as planned.