Law Librarian Blog

WILD Foundation's Handbook on International Wilderness Law and Policy

A Handbook on International Wilderness Law and Policy
Edited by Cyril F. Kormos

List Price: $39
408 pages
WILD Foundation (March 2008)

Book Description. A Handbook on International Wilderness Law and Policy, published by The WILD Foundation and Fulcrum Publishing, is the first comprehensive guide to wilderness laws and policies around the world. It provides a detailed "how-to" guide for conservation professionals interested in developing new wilderness laws or policies in their countries; and also provides the most current information to practitioners in countries where wilderness laws and policies are already in place, but who are interested in learning from approaches and experiences in other countries. Included in the book are case studies from 12 countries and one indigenous group as well as a matrix comparing different wilderness definitions around the world.

One of First Post 9/11 Hate Crimes Murders Topic of Documentary

A Dream in Doubt [documentary's website] is an immigrant story in a world in which patriotism has morphed into murder. When Rana Singh Sodhi’s brother is killed in America’s first post-9/11 hate crime murders, he travels to Mesa, Arizona to reveal a story of national tragedy, murder, community and the American dream. Tami Yeager's documentary of one man’s odyssey from persecution in India to embracing America as his homeland proves that courage and hope have the power to overcome hate. [JH]

Trailer

Ambassador Heraldo Munoz Chronicles Iraq War Diplomacy

A Solitary War: A Diplomat's Chronicle of the Iraq War and Its Lessons
by Heraldo Muñoz

List Price: $16.95
Paperback: 270 pages
Publisher: Fulcrum Publishing (April 15, 2008)
ISBN-10: 1555916767
ISBN-13: 978-1555916763

Book Description: Beginning with a telling phone call from Condi, the former president of the UN Security Council tells for the first time the behind-the-scenes story of the Iraq war, as seen from an international perspective. Ambassador Muñoz examines the United States controversial decision to take a unilateral stand and the repercussions for both the U.S. and the rest of the world. This fascinating case study explains why a multilateral approach to foreign policy, including reliance on international organizations such as the UN, is imperative in today s world. A Solitary War offers a compelling argument for rebuilding trust among the international community and returning to a truly cooperative global order.

About the Author: Ambassador Heraldo Munoz was deputy foreign minister of Chile between March 2000 and January 2002 and minister secretary-general of government prior to assuming his present post as Chilean ambassador to the UN. In that capacity, and as the recent president of the UN Security Council, he was a direct participant in the diplomatic initiatives and negotiations on key international issues, from Iraq and Lebanon to Sudan and Haiti.

Banished

From the 1860s to the 1920s, dozens of towns and counties across America violently expelled entire African American communities, forcing thousands of black families to flee their homes. A century later, these towns remain mostly white. Banished [documentary's website] tells the story of three of these communities and their black descendents, who return to learn shocking histories. [JH]

Comprehensive Resource on Online and Distance Learning

Online and Distance Learning: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications is a significant resource on best practices in distance education edited by Dr. Lawrence A. Tomei that spans more than 4,000 pages with nearly 550 contributors.

Choice magazine highly recommends this resource.

This well-written book analyzes trends, presents implications, and addresses many of the key components of online learning design. It is a highly valuable resource for people in institutions contemplating an online learning program (K-12 or higher education) who want to avoid pitfalls that others have experienced. To find this much Web content on these issues one would have to link to nearly 50 online reference sites. This collection puts it all in one convenient set.

While not specific to legal education, this works deals extensively with higher education and has a host of international contributors who offer a broad perspective of what distance education can and should be.

The six volume anthology covers a wide range of topics including:

• Fundamental Concepts and Theories in Online and Distance Learning
• Learning Development and Design Methodologies
• Choosing among Learning Tools and Technologies
• Utilization and Application of Online and Distance Learning
• Organizational and Social Implications
• Managerial Implications and the Evaluation of Online Education
• Critical Issues including Ameliorating the Weaknesses of Online Education
• Emerging Trends such as the Application of Video Games to Learning

Additional information about the content of the work is available from the publisher,IGI Global. [Amazon link] [NA]

Just Released, Zakaria's The Post-American World

The Post-American World
by Fareed Zakaria

List Price: $25.95
Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: W. W. Norton (May 5, 2008)
ISBN-10: 039306235X
ISBN-13: 978-0393062359

Book Description: One of our most distinguished thinkers argues that the "rise of the rest" is the great story of our time.

"This is not a book about the decline of America, but rather about the rise of everyone else." So begins Fareed Zakaria's important new work on the era we are now entering. Following on the success of his best-selling The Future of Freedom, Zakaria describes with equal prescience a world in which the United States will no longer dominate the global economy, orchestrate geopolitics, or overwhelm cultures. He sees the "rise of the rest"—the growth of countries like China, India, Brazil, Russia, and many others—as the great story of our time, and one that will reshape the world. The tallest buildings, biggest dams, largest-selling movies, and most advanced cell phones are all being built outside the United States. This economic growth is producing political confidence, national pride, and potentially international problems. How should the United States understand and thrive in this rapidly changing international climate? What does it mean to live in a truly global era? Zakaria answers these questions with his customary lucidity, insight, and imagination.

About the Author: Fareed Zakaria is the editor of Newsweek International and writes a weekly column on international affairs. His previous books include the New York Times bestseller The Future of Freedom and From Wealth to Power.

Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society

Well worth reading. Make no mistake: this is no run-of-the-mill exposé of media bias, but a sophisticated analysis of the ways and means by which lies and distortions do so well in today's fractured, cynical media world. —Todd Gitlin, Professor of Journalism and Sociology, Columbia University

True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society
by Farhad Manjoo

List Price: $25.95 
Publisher: Wiley (March 17, 2008)
ISBN-10: 0470050101
ISBN-13: 978-0470050101

Book Description: In True Enough, Manjoo presents findings from psychology, sociology, political science, and economics to show how new technologies are prompting the cultural ascendancy of belief over fact. In an age of talk radio, cable TV, and the Internet—the blog- and YouTube-addled million-channel media universe—it is no longer necessary for any of us to confront notions that contradict what we "know" to be true. Stephen Colbert calls this "truthiness"—when something feels true without any evidence that it is. Here Manjoo probes the cognitive basis of truthiness, exploring how biases push both liberals and conservatives to select and interpret news in a way that accords with their personal versions of "reality."

Why has punditry lately overtaken news, with so many media outlets pushing partisan agendas instead of information? Why do lies seem to linger so long in the cultural subconscious even after they've been thoroughly discredited? And why, when more people than ever before are documenting the truth with laptops and digital cameras, does fact-free spin and propagandaseem to work so well? True Enough explores leading controversies of national politics, foreign affairs, science, and business, explaining how Americans have begun to organize themselves into echo chambers that harbor diametrically different facts—not merely opinions—from those of the larger culture. We meet people who espouse far-out interpretations of reality—about everything from the history of John Kerry's time in Vietnam to the integrity of the 2004 election to the truth about 9/11—and dig into the mechanism by which they came to hold those beliefs.

New Law & Public Policy Titles from MIT Press

Details below the fold. [JH]

Antitrust

• Handbook of Antitrust Economics, edited by Paolo Buccirossi

Current Affairs

• The Road to Democracy in Iran, by Akbar Ganji
• Why Nuclear Disarmament Matters, by Hans Blix
• The Epicenter of Crisis: The New Middle East, edited by Alexander T. J. Lennon

Environment

• American Environmental Policy, 1990-2006: Beyond Gridlock, by Christopher McGrory Klyza and David Sousa
• Environmental Law, Policy, and Economics: Reclaiming the Environmental Agenda, by Nicholas A. Ashford and Charles C. Caldart

Taxation

• Fundamental Tax Reform: Issues, Choices, and Implications, edited by John W. Diamond and George R. Zodrow
• Taxing Ourselves: A Citizen's Guide to the Debate over Taxes, 4th ed., by Joel Slemrod and Jon Bakija

Technology

• Digital Media and Democracy: Tactics in Hard Times, edited by Megan Boler
• The Privacy Advocates: Resisting the Spread of Surveillance, by Colin J. Bennett (forthcoming, October 2008)

Antitrust

Handbook of Antitrust Economics
Edited by Paolo Buccirossi

Cloth: $95.00
MIT Press, April 2008
ISBN-10: 0-262-02627-9
ISBN-13: 978-0-262-02627-7

Book Description: Over the past twenty years, economic theory has begun to play a central role in antitrust matters. In earlier days, the application of antitrust rules was viewed almost entirely in formal terms; now it is widely accepted that the proper interpretation of these rules requires an understanding of how markets work and how firms can alter their efficient functioning. The Handbook of Antitrust Economics offers scholars, students, administrators, courts, companies, and lawyers the economist’s view of the subject, describing the application of newly developed theoretical models and improved empirical methods to antitrust and competition law in both the United States and the European Union. (The book uses the U.S. term "antitrust law" and the European "competition law" interchangeably, emphasizing the commonalities between the two jurisdictions.)

After a general discussion of the use of empirical methods in antitrust cases, the Handbook covers mergers, agreements, abuses of dominance (or unilateral conducts), and market features that affect the way firms compete. Chapters examine such topics as analyzing the competitive effects of both horizontal and vertical mergers, detecting and preventing cartels, theoretical and empirical analysis of vertical restraints, state aids, the relationship of competition law to the defense of intellectual property, and the application of antitrust law to "bidding markets," network industries, and two-sided markets.

Current Affairs

The Road to Democracy in Iran
Akbar Ganji

Cloth: $14.95
MIT Press, April 2008
ISBN-10: 0-262-07295-5
ISBN-13: 978-0-262-07295-3

Book Description: Akbar Ganji, called by some "Iran's most famous dissident," was a commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. But, troubled by the regime's repressive nature, he became an investigative journalist in the 1990s, writing for Iran's pro-democracy newspapers. Most notably, he traced the murders of dissident intellectuals to Iran's secret service. In 2000 Ganji was arrested, sentenced to six years in prison, and banned from working as a journalist. His eighty-day hunger strike during his last year in prison mobilized the international human rights community.

The Road to Democracy in Iran, Ganji's first book in English, demonstrates his lifelong commitment to human rights and democracy. A passionate call for universal human rights and the right to democracy from a Muslim perspective, it lays out the goals and means of Iran's democracy movement, why women's rights trump some interpretations of Islamic law, and how the West can help promote democracy in Iran (he strongly opposes U.S. intervention) and other Islamic countries.

Throughout the book Ganji argues consistently for universal rights based on our common humanity (and he believes the world's religions support that idea). But his arguments never veer into abstraction; they are rooted deeply in the realities of life in Islamic countries, and offer a clear picture of the possibilities for and obstacles to improving human rights and promoting democracy in the Muslim world.

About the Author: Since his release from prison in March 2006, Akbar Ganji has been traveling outside Iran, meeting with intellectuals and activists in the international human rights community. He is currently living in the United States.

Why Nuclear Disarmament Matters
Hans Blix

Cloth: $14.95
MIT Press, April 2008
ISBN-10: 0-262-02644-9
ISBN-13: 978-0-262-02644-4

Book Description: In 2002 Dr. Hans Blix, then chief United Nations weapons inspector, lead his team on a search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Before the United States went to war with Iraq the next March, he maintained there were no WMD in Iraq. History proved him right.

For more than forty years Dr. Blix has worked on global disarmament, and with this new book he renews the call for nuclear nonproliferation. His interests, though, go beyond stemming the threat of nuclear attack from rogue states and terrorists. It is not, he argues, a recipe for success for nuclear states to tell the rest of the world that it must stay away from the very weapons that nuclear states claim are indispensable. We will never be able to convince rogue states to halt the pursuit of nuclear weapons programs unless we take the lead in a new nonproliferation and disarmament movement.

Looking back at the UN post-World War II efforts against the use of nuclear weapons, Blix documents the retreat from early commitments by nuclear powers, most alarmingly from pledges against first use and toward programs to develop new types of nuclear weapons. He urges us to revive these efforts, and that the world's powers also look at issues of global disarmament and security as pieces of the same puzzle. Why Nuclear Disarmament Matters includes specific suggestions--how the UN can set the stage for a credible multilateral disarmament and nonproliferation process; what kind of treaties would be most helpful--and recommendations for regional policy, including providing the Middle East with enriched uranium for civilian nuclear power production but not allowing uranium enrichment there.

About the Author: From March 2000 to June 2003 Hans Blix was Executive Chairman of the UN Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC). Dr. Blix, author of Disarming Iraq, is Chair of the Swedish government's Commission on Weapons of Mass Destruction.

The Epicenter of Crisis
The New Middle East
Edited by Alexander T. J. Lennon

Paper: $25.00
MIT Press, March 2008
ISBN-10: 0-262-62216-5
ISBN-13: 978-0-262-62216-5

Book Description: The Epicenter of Crisis argues that six contiguous states epitomize the security challenges of a post-9/11, globalized world: Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Characterized by a dramatically transforming Islam, ethnic conflict, civil war, failed states, and terrorism, this "new Middle East" is the epicenter of what some call an arc of crisis, stretching from the Balkans into Southeast Asia. The Epicenter of Crisis examines this geopolitically dynamic region, analyzing the changing role of Islam in these six critical countries, the dangers posed by potential failed states, and the evolving terrorist threat

The contributors, all specialists in Middle East or foreign policy, address such crucial issues as the relationship between the Saudi royal family and Al Quaeda, Syria's waning influence over Hizbollah, media coverage of the war in Iraq, a new U.S. strategy for dealing with Iran, Afghanistan's opium industry, and the effectiveness of U.S. multi-billion-dollar assistance to Pakistan. The Epicenter of Crisis challenges readers to reconceptualize the boundaries of the Middle East in a changed world.

Environment

American Environmental Policy, 1990-2006
Beyond Gridlock
Christopher McGrory Klyza and David Sousa

Cloth: $69.00
MIT Press, January 2008
ISBN-10: 0-262-11313-9
ISBN-13: 978-0-262-11313-7

Book Description: The "golden era" of American environmental lawmaking, between 1964 and 1980, saw twenty-two pieces of major environmental legislation (including the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act) passed by bipartisan majorities in Congress and signed into law by presidents of both parties. But since then environmental issues have divided the parties and engendered bitter interest-group politics, with most new proposals blocked by legislative gridlock. In this book, Christopher McGrory Klyza and David Sousa argue that this longstanding legislative stalemate at the national level has forced environmental policymaking onto other pathways, both inside and outside government. Despite the congressional impasse, they write, environmental policymaking today is vibrant and complex--although the results fall short of what is needed in the years ahead.

Klyza and Sousa identify and analyze five alternative policy paths, which they illustrate with case studies: "appropriations politics" in Congress; executive authority, including the rulemaking process; the role of the courts, whose role in environmental policymaking has grown in the era of legislative gridlock; “next-generation” collaborative experiments (which, the authors argue, should be seen as an important approach but not a panacea); and policymaking at the state level. Their comprehensive analysis of the state of environmental policymaking since 1990 shows that although legislative gridlock is unlikely to dissipate anytime soon, the nation continues to move in the direction favored by environmentalists, largely because of the policy legacies of the 1960s and 1970s that have created an enduring 'green state" rooted in statutes, bureaucratic routines, and public expectations.

About the Authors: Christopher McGrory Klyza is Robert '35 and Helen '38 Stafford Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Political Science and Environmental Studies at Middlebury College. David Sousa is Professor in the Department of Politics and Government at the University of Puget Sound.

Environmental Law, Policy, and Economics
Reclaiming the Environmental Agenda
Nicholas A. Ashford and Charles C. Caldart

Cloth: $90.00
MIT Press, May 2008
ISBN-10: 0-262-01238-3
ISBN-13: 978-0-262-01238-6

Book Description: The past twenty-five years have seen a significant evolution in environmental policy, with new environmental legislation and substantive amendments to earlier laws, significant advances in environmental science, and changes in the treatment of science (and scientific uncertainty) by the courts. This book offers a detailed discussion of the important issues in environmental law, policy, and economics, tracing their development over the past few decades through an examination of environmental law cases and commentaries by leading scholars. The authors focus on pollution, addressing both pollution control and prevention, but also emphasize the evaluation, design, and use of the law to stimulate technical change and industrial transformation, arguing that there is a need to address broader issues of sustainable development.

Environmental Law, Policy, and Economics, which grew out of courses taught by the authors at MIT, treats the traditional topics covered in most classes in environmental law and policy, including common law and administrative law concepts and the primary federal legislation. But it goes beyond these to address topics not often found in a single volume: the information-based obligations of industry, enforcement of environmental law, market-based and voluntary alternatives to traditional regulation, risk assessment, environmental economics, and technological innovation and diffusion. Countering arguments found in other texts that government should play a reduced role in environmental protection, this book argues that clear, stringent legal requirements--coupled with flexible means for meeting them--and meaningful stakeholder participation are necessary for bringing about environmental improvements and technological transformations.

About the Authors: Nicholas A. Ashford is Professor of Technology and Director of the Technology and Law Program at MIT. Charles C. Caldart is Director of Litigation of the National Environmental Law Center and a Lecturer in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT.

Taxation

Fundamental Tax Reform
Issues, Choices, and Implications
Edited by John W. Diamond and George R. Zodrow

Cloth: $45.00
MIT Press, April 2008
ISBN-10: 0-262-04247-9
ISBN-13: 978-0-262-04247-5

Book Description: Reform of the federal income tax system has become a perennial item on the domestic policy agenda of the United States, although there is considerable uncertainty over specifics. Indeed the recent report of the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform recommended not one but two divergent policy directions (and included extensive discussion of a third). In Fundamental Tax Reform, top experts in tax policy discuss a wide range of issues raised by the prospect of significant tax reform, identifying the most critical questions and considering whether the answers are known, unknown--or unknowable.

The debates over tax reform usually concern the advantages and disadvantages of income-based taxation as opposed to any of the several alternative forms of consumption-based taxation. The book opens with chapters that discuss the strengths, weaknesses, and political feasibility of these options. Other chapters consider the effects of tax reforms on businesses, especially their investment behavior, and include a discussion of possible problems in any transition to a consumption-based tax; international taxation issues arising in an era of globalization; and individual behavioral response to tax reform, including a view of the topic from the perspective of the relatively new field of behavioral economics.

Taxing Ourselves, 4th Edition
A Citizen's Guide to the Debate over Taxes
Joel Slemrod and Jon Bakija

Cloth: $60.00
MIT Press, April 2008
ISBN-10: 0-262-19573-9
ISBN-13: 978-0-262-19573-7

Book Description: As Albert Einstein may or may not have said, "The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax." Indeed, to follow the debate over tax reform, the interested citizen is forced to choose between misleading sound bites and academic treatises. Taxing Ourselves bridges the gap between the two by discussing the key issues clearly and without a political agenda: Should the federal income tax be replaced with a flat tax or sales tax? Should it be left in place and reformed? Can tax cuts stimulate the economy, or will higher deficits undermine any economic benefit? Tax policy experts Joel Slemrod and Jon Bakija lay out in accessible language what is known and not known about how taxes affect the economy, offer guidelines for evaluating tax systems, and provide enough information to assess both the current income tax system and the leading proposals to reform or replace it (including the flat tax and the consumption tax).

The fourth edition of this popular guide has been extensively revised to incorporate the latest information, covering such recent developments as the Bush administration's tax cuts (which expire in 2011) and the alternatives proposed by the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform. Slemrod and Bakija provide us with the knowledge and the tools--including an invaluable voter's guide to the tax policy debate--to make our own informed choices about how we should tax ourselves.

About the Authors: Joel Slemrod is Paul W. McCracken Collegiate Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy and Director of the Office of Tax Policy Research at the University of Michigan. Jon Bakija is Associate Professor of Economics at Williams College and Visiting Associate Professor of Law at Cornell University Law School, 2007-2008.

Technology

Digital Media and Democracy
Tactics in Hard Times
Edited by Megan Boler

Cloth: $40.00
MIT Press, May 2008
ISBN-10: 0-262-02642-2
ISBN-13: 978-0-262-02642-0

Book Description: In an age of proliferating media and news sources, who has the power to define reality? When the dominant media declared the existence of WMDs in Iraq, did that make it a fact? Today, the "Social web" (sometimes known as Web 2.0, groupware, or the participatory Web)--epitomized by blogs, viral videos, and YouTube--creates new pathways for truths to emerge and makes possible new tactics for media activism. In Digital Media and Democracy, leading scholars in media and communication studies, media activists, journalists, and artists explore the contradiction at the heart of the relationship between truth and power today: the fact that the radical democratization of knowledge and multiplication of sources and voices made possible by digital media coexists with the blatant falsification of information by political and corporate powers.

The book maps a new digital media landscape that features citizen journalism, The Daily Show, blogging, and alternative media. The contributors discuss broad questions of media and politics, offer nuanced analyses of change in journalism, and undertake detailed examinations of the use of Web-based media in shaping political and social movements. The chapters include not only essays by noted media scholars but also interviews with such journalists and media activists as Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, Media Matters host Robert McChesney, and Hassan Ibrahim of Al Jazeera.

The Privacy Advocates
Resisting the Spread of Surveillance
Colin J. Bennett

Cloth: $28.00
MIT Press, October 2008
ISBN-10: 0-262-02638-4
ISBN-13: 978-0-262-02638-3

Book Description: Today, personal information is captured, processed, and disseminated in a bewildering variety of ways, and through increasingly sophisticated, miniaturized, and distributed technologies: identity cards, biometrics, video surveillance, the use of cookies and spyware by Web sites, data mining and profiling, and many others. In The Privacy Advocates, Colin Bennett analyzes the people and groups around the world who have risen to challenge the most intrusive surveillance practices by both government and corporations. Bennett describes a network of self-identified privacy advocates who have emerged from civil society--without official sanction and with few resources, but surprisingly influential.

A number of high-profile conflicts in recent years have brought this international advocacy movement more sharply into focus. Bennett is the first to examine privacy and surveillance not from a legal, political, or technical perspective but from the viewpoint of these independent activists who have found creative ways to affect policy and practice. Drawing on extensive interviews with key informants in the movement, he examines how they frame the issue and how they organize, who they are and what strategies they use. He also presents a series of case studies that illustrate how effective their efforts have been, including conflicts over key-escrow encryption (which allows the government to read encrypted messages), online advertising through third-party cookies that track users across different Web sites, and online authentication mechanisms such as the short-lived Microsoft Passport. Finally, Bennett considers how the loose coalitions of the privacy network could develop into a more cohesive international social movement.

About the Author: Colin Bennett is Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Victoria, British Columbia. He is the coauthor (with Charles Raab) of The Governance of Privacy: Policy Instruments in Global Perspective (updated paperback edition, MIT Press, 2006).

Nussbaum's Liberty of Conscience

Nussbaum’s contribution is to show vividly how the equality tradition leads the court, and the rest of us, to ask the right questions. As she understands, this is what we can ask of the law. -- Emily Bazelon, Good Faith, New York Times Book Review (March 23, 2008).

Liberty of Conscience: In Defense of America's Tradition of Religious Equality
by Martha C. Nussbaum

List Price: $28.95
Hardcover: 406 pages
Publisher: Basic Books (February 4, 2008)
ISBN-10: 0465051642
ISBN-13: 978-0465051649

Related New Titles (featured below the fold)

Steven Goldberg's Bleached Faith: The Tragic Cost When Religion Is Forced into the Public Square Forrest Church's So Help Me God: The Founding Fathers and the First Great Battle over Church and State Garry Wills' Head and Heart: American Christianities Mark Lilla's The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West, named one of the 100 "Notable Books of 2007" by The New York Times.

Book Description: From one of America's most distinguished moral philosophers, a sweeping historically based argument that equal respect for all citizens is the bedrock of America's tradition of religious freedom. In one of the great triumphs of the colonial and Revolutionary periods, the founders of the future United States overcame religious intolerance in favor of a constitutional order dedicated to fair treatment for people's deeply held conscientious beliefs. It granted equal liberty of conscience to all and took a firm stand against religious establishment. This respect for religious difference, acclaimed scholar Martha Nussbaum writes, formed our democracy.

Yet today there are signs that this legacy is misunderstood. The prominence of a particular type of Christianity in our public life suggests the unequal worth of citizens who hold different religious beliefs, or no beliefs. Other people, meanwhile, seek to curtail the influence of religion in public life in a way that is itself unbalanced and unfair. Such partisan efforts, Nussbaum argues, violate the spirit of our Constitution.

Liberty of Conscience is a historical and conceptual study of the American tradition of religious freedom. Weaving together political history, philosophical ideas, and key constitutional cases, this is a rich chronicle of an ideal of equality that has always been central to our history but is now in serious danger.

About the Author: Martha C. Nussbaum holds appointments in the Philosophy Department, Law School, and Divinity School at the University of Chicago. She is the author of thirteen previous books. Her Cultivating Humanity won the 2002 Grawemeyer Award for Education.

Bleached Faith:The Tragic Cost When Religion Is Forced into the Public Square
by Steven Goldberg

List Price: $24.95
Cloth: 176 pages
Publisher: Stanford UP, 2008
ISBN-10: 0804758611
ISBN-13: 9780804758611

Book Description: Along the lines of other incredulous "neo-Enlightenment" books, Bleached Faith makes a forceful case that the gravest threat to real faith comes from those who would water down religion in order to win the dubious honor of forcing it into public buildings and classrooms.

The freedom of religion we enjoy in the United States, both as a matter of law and practice, is extraordinary by any measure. However, when American courts allow the government to insert religious symbolism in public spaces, real religion is the loser. Goldberg argues that people on both sides of this debate should resist this corruption of religion. The book provides a survey of the legal and political environment in which battles over the public display of the Ten Commandments, the teaching of intelligent design in our schools, and the celebration of religious holidays take place.

Goldberg firmly maintains that, "if American religion becomes a watered-down broth that is indistinguishable from consumerism and science, we will have no one to blame but ourselves. My opposition to pushing religion into the courthouse and the biology classroom does not stem from hostility to religion. I am opposed to bleached faith—the empty symbolism that diminishes the power of real belief."

So Help Me God: The Founding Fathers and the First Great Battle over Church and State
by Forrest Church

List Price: $28.00 
Hardcover: 544 pages
Publisher: Harcourt; 1 edition (September 10, 2007)
ISBN-10: 0151011850
ISBN-13: 978-0151011858

Book Description: Today’s dispute over the line between church and state (or the lack thereof) is neither the first nor the fiercest in our history. In a powerful retelling of the birth of the American body politic, religious historian Forrest Church describes our first great culture war—a tumultuous yet nearly forgotten conflict that raged from George Washington’s presidency to James Monroe’s. On one side of the battle, the proponents of order—Federalists, Congregationalists, New Englanders—believed that the only legitimate ruler of men is God. On the other side, the defenders of liberty—republicans, Baptists, Virginians—cheered the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, and believed that only the separation of church and state would preserve man’s freedom. Would we be a nation under God, or with liberty for all? In this vigorous history, Forrest Church offers a new vision of our earliest presidents’ beliefs, reshaping assumptions about the debates that still reverberate across our land.

About the Author: Forrest Church is minister of All Souls Church in Manhattan. He earned his doctorate in church history at Harvard and has written or edited twenty-two books, including The Separation of Church and State.

Head and Heart: American Christianities
by Garry Wills

List Price: $29.95
Hardcover: 640 pages
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The (October 4, 2007)
ISBN-10: 1594201463
ISBN-13: 978-1594201462

Book Description: A landmark examination of Christianity's place in American life across the broad sweep of this country's history, from the Puritans to the presidential administration of George W. Bush.

The struggle within American Christianity, Garry Wills argues, now and throughout our country's history, is between the head and the heart: between reason and emotion, Enlightenment and Evangelism. Why has this been so? How has the tension between the two poles played out, and with what consequences, over the past 400 years? How "Christian" is America, after all? Garry Wills brings a lifetime's worth of thought about these questions to bear on a magnificent historical reckoning that offers much needed perspective on some of the most contentious issues of our time.

A religious revolution occurred in America in the 18th century, one that saw the emergence of an Enlightenment religious culture whose hallmarks were tolerance for other faiths and a belief that religion was a matter best divorced from political institutions-the proverbial "separation of church and state." Wills shows us just how incredibly radical a departure this separation was: there was simply no precedent for it. To put this leap in perspective, Wills provides a grounding in the pre-Enlightenment religion that preceded it, beginning with the early Puritans. He then provides a thrillingly clear unpacking of the steps, particularly Madison's and Jefferson's, by which church-state separation was enshrined in the Constitution, and reveals the great irony of the efforts of today's Religious Right to blur the lines between the two. In fact, it is precisely that separation that has allowed religion in America to flourish since the disestablishment of religion created a free market, as it were, and competition for souls led to the profusion of denominations across the length and breadth of the land.

As Wills examines the key movements and personalities that have transformed America's religious landscape, we see again and again the same pattern emerge: a cooling of popular religious fervor followed by a grassroots explosion in evangelical activity, generally at a time of great social transformation and anxiety. But such forces inevitably go too far, provoking a backlash as is happening right now with the forces of Creationism and the anti-abortion fundamentalists.

About the Author: Garry Wills has written many acclaimed works, on religion and on American history, including Lincoln at Gettysburg, Cincinnatus: George Washington and the Enlightenment, What Jesus Meant, and What Paul Meant. His works have received many awards, including the Pulitzer Prize. He is professor of history emeritus at Northwestern University.

The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West
by Mark Lilla

List Price: $26.00
Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Knopf; 1 edition (September 11, 2007)
ISBN-10: 1400043670
ISBN-13: 978-1400043675

Book Description: Religious passions are again driving world politics. The quest to bring political life under God’s authority has been revived, confounding expectations of a secular future. In this major book, Mark Lilla reveals the sources of this age-old quest—and its surprising role in shaping Western thought.

The story could not be more timely. Most civilizations in history have been organized on the basis of a political theology – a myth or revelation about the correct ordering of society. Yet due to a crisis in Western Christendom nearly five hundred years ago, a novel intellectual challenge to political theology arose in Europe. By portraying religion as an expression of human nature, not a divine gift, modern Western thinkers found a way to free politics from God’s authority and build barriers against destructive religious passions.

But the temptations of political theology are always present, even in the West. As Lilla vividly shows, the urge to reconnect politics to religion remained strong and took novel forms in modern European thought. By the Second World War a forceful political messianism had arisen, justifying the most deadly ideologies of the age. Making us question what we thought we knew about religion, politics, and the fate of civilizations, Lilla reminds us of the modern West’s unique trajectory and what is required to remain on it.

About the Author: Mark Lilla is Professor of Humanities and Religion at Columbia University. He was previously Professor at the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago.

New Law Titles from Carolina Press

Details below the fold for the following new books from Carolina Press. [JH]

• Seed Wars: Controversies and Cases on Plant Genetic Resources and Intellectual Property
  by Keith Aoki
• The Origins of African-American Interests in International Law by Henry J. Richardson III
• The Interpretation Game: How Judges and Lawyers Make the Law by Robert Benson
• The Five Types of Legal Argument, 2d ed. by Wilson R. Huhn

Seed Wars
Controversies and Cases on Plant Genetic Resources and Intellectual Property
by Keith Aoki

List Price: $40.00
280 pp, 2008
ISBN-10: 1-59460-050-3
ISBN-13: 978-1-59460-050-0

Book Description: Seed Wars is a comprehensive overview of the current domestic and international legal controversies regarding intellectual property protections for plant genetic resources (PGRs) over the past three decades. This book examines these controversies on three fronts: (1) the rise of intellectual property protections for plant varieties and the enclosure of the “genetic” commons; (2) the subsequent move of the agro-chemical industry from manufacturing fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides to “manufacturing” seeds in the context of industrial agriculture; and (3) the emergence of overlapping regimes of domestic and multilateral treaties such as the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS, 1994), the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD, 1992) and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources (ITPGR, 2004) from the 1990s on. Finally, this book speculates on possible directions that intellectual property protection for PGRs may take in the 21st century.

While intellectual property protection for plants has been available in the United States since 1930, the decade of the 1960s saw the rise of Plant Variety Protections in Europe and by 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court embraced the idea that living organisms could be patented, paving the way for new plant varieties to receive utility patent protection in the U.S.

The Origins of African-American Interests in International Law
by Henry J. Richardson III

List Price: $65.00
544 pp, 2008
ISBN-10: 1-59460-383-9
ISBN-13: 978-1-59460-383-9

Book Description: This book explores the birth of the African-American international tradition and, particularly, the roots of African Americans’ stake in international law. Richardson considers these origins as only formally arising about 1619, the date the first Africans were landed at Jamestown in the British North American colony of Virginia. He looks back to the opening of the European slave trade out of Africa and to the 1500s and the first arrival of Africans on the North American continent. Moving through the pre-Independence period, the American Revolution, the Constitutional Convention, and the Westward Migration, the book ends around 1820.

This historical period also roughly corresponds to two other key historical phenomena greatly affecting the Atlantic Ocean basin: the rise of international law as a modern legal system (including European states and their Atlantic colonies) and the rise and flourishing of the international slave trade in African slaves to the Americas by European and New World governments and merchants. Only by placing African slavery in the British North American colonies in the context of the international slave system encompassing and linking the New World can the voices, struggles, demands, claims, and decisions of slaves and Free Blacks in North America towards freedom, relative to their evolving interests under international law, be properly understood. These interests comprise no less than the birth of an African-American international jurisprudence.

The Interpretation Game
How Judges and Lawyers Make the Law
by Robert Benson

List Price: $25.00
204 pp, 2008
ISBN-10: 1-59460-501-7
ISBN-13: 978-1-59460-501-7

Book Description: This book questions traditional methods of legal interpretation and challenges the position that objective interpretation of law is possible. Legal interpretation, the author avers, is unavoidably subjective. Benson suggests that “plain meaning,” “purpose,” “intent,” “structure,” “strict construction,” “precedent,” and other legal mysticisms are merely pieces manipulated in a game. Those interested in legal process, legal writing, constitutional law, statutory interpretation, and jurisprudence will find his arguments provocative and engaging. Whether one is a lawyer, judge, journalist, or informed citizen, this look at the on-going battle about whether judges and lawyers “find the law” or “make the law” will be a stimulating read.

The Five Types of Legal Argument, 2d ed.
by Wilson R. Huhn

List Price: $25.00
224 pp, 2008
ISBN-10: 1-59460-516-5
ISBN-13: 978-1-59460-516-1

Book Description: The Five Types of Legal Argument succeeds both as a work of legal theory and as a practical guide to legal reasoning for law students, lawyers and judges.  Huhn introduces each concept separately, and from many parts Huhn develops an intricate and nuanced theory of what law is.  Huhn also shows readers how to identify, create, attack, and evaluate the five types of legal arguments (text, intent, precedent, tradition and policy) and how to weave the different types of arguments together to make them more persuasive. The Second Edition of this book further develops both the theoretical and practical themes of the work. In this edition Huhn introduces two additional ways of attacking legal arguments, and in a new chapter he utilizes principles of deductive logic to demonstrate the validity of the theory of the five types of legal arguments.

Just Released, Scalia and Garner on the Art of Persuading Judges

Justice Scalia and Bryan Garner decided to write Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges after Garner interviewed Scalia and seven other justices about legal writing and advocacy last year. See LLB's earlier post about the videos. [JH]

Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges
by Antonin Scalia and Bryan A. Garner

List Price: $29.95 
Hardcover: 269 pages
Publisher: Thomson West; 1 edition (April 28, 2008)
ISBN-10: 0314184716
ISBN-13: 978-0314184719

Book Description: In their professional lives courtroom lawyers must do these two things well: speak persuasively and write persuasively. In this noteworthy book, two of the most noted legal writers of our day Justice Antonin Scalia and Bryan A. Garner systematically present every important idea about judicial persuasion in a fresh, entertaining way. Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges is a guide for novice and experienced litigators alike. It covers the essentials of sound legal reasoning, including how to develop the syllogism that underlies any argument. From there the authors explain the art of brief-writing, especially what to include and what to omit, so that you can induce the judge to focus closely on your arguments. Finally, they show what it takes to succeed in oral argument. The opinions of Justice Scalia are legendary for their sharp insights, biting wit, and memorable phrasing. The writings of Bryan A. Garner, editor in chief of Black's Law Dictionary, are respected inside and outside legal circles for their practical guidance on the art of writing and advocacy. Together the Scalia-Garner team has produced a fresh, innovative approach to a timeless topic.

Promoting the Book. Justice Scalia has been giving a series of well-publicized speeches as he promotes a new book. The ABA Journal website has been chronicling them. Here's a sampling of quotable quotes from the once media-adverse justice:

• "I am a textualist, I am an originalist. I am not a nut," ABA Journal
• "If you want to enact a statute that says the president can never say ‘God bless America,’ then I have no problem with that. Just don’t tell me that the Constitution prohibits it.” ABA Journal
• "I am not a moralist-in-chief … [nor an] ayatollah who is supposed to tell America what its morality should be." ABA Journal

SOP at Abu Ghraib?

Errol Morris' new documentary, Standard Operating Procedure, was released on April 25th [Errol Morris website | Sony film site]. The accompanying book will be released on May 18th (co-authored by Philip Gourevitch)[Amazon]. In the film, Morris examines the origin of the Abu Ghraib prison photographs and the incidents of abuse and torture of suspected terrorists at the hands of U.S. forces there. The buzz about this film is loud because of Morris' high profile. He is a renowned but controversial filmmaker. His works include the Academy Award-winning The Fog of War, Mr. Death, Fast Cheap & Out of Control, A Brief History of Time, and The Thin Blue Line.

Whether Standard Operating Procedure rings true is subject to debate. See Dana Stevens' review on Slate ("[Standard Operating Procedure] is indisputably an impressive piece of documentary filmmaking. Whether that makes it a great document about what actually happened at Abu Ghraib is a separate question, and one that goes to the heart of Morris' project as a filmmaker.") The HBO documentary, Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, may be required viewing for getting a more complete picture. For the "official" account, see The "Taguba Report" On Treatment Of Abu Ghraib Prisoners In Iraq.

Trailer for Standard Operating Procedure

See also Time Magazine video clip of Errol Morris talking about his new film

Errol Morris on "doing history" in a different way using the Abu Ghraib photographs:

Endnote: Two "detention" films that flew below the radar of the US press:

The Road to Guantanamo, a 2006 docudrama directed by Michael Winterbottom about the incarceration of three British detainees at a detainment camp in Guantánamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba.

Valley of the Wolves Iraq (Turkish: Kurtlar Vadisi Irak), a popular Turkish film from 2006 based on a television series of the same name that was a hit in Turkey for three seasons. The movie is set in northern Iraq during the Occupation of Iraq and begins with a real-life incident: the arrest on July 4, 2003 of 11 allied Turkish special forces soldiers and 13 civilians by the U.S. commander of the 173rd Airborne.

[JH]

New Textbooks for Legal Research and Writing Courses

McKinney's Legal Research: A Practical Guide and Self-Instructional Workbook,
5th with 2008 Computer Assisted Legal Research Package
By Scott Childs and Ruth A McKinney

List Price: $52.00
Publisher: West Law School (American Casebook Series)(March 2008)
ISBN: 031418502X
Format: Softbound

Book Desciption: Based on time-proven active learning principles, this workbook relies on a guided, self-instructional model that allows students to learn in their own style and at their own pace, thus increasing their motivation, retention, and satisfaction. Complete with an enhanced supplement for online research and an accompanying Web site, this edition emphasizes the importance of having familiarity with a wide array of legal research tools and strategies from which the legal researcher can choose wisely.

Legal Writing
by Richard K. Neumann, Jr. and Sheila Simon

List Price: $57.00
Publisher: Aspen (April 3, 2008)
ISBN: 0735564248
ISBN-13: 9780735564244
Format: Paperback

Book Desciption: This concise, basic text for legal writing courses features:

• succinct explanations that don’t sacrifice coverage
• step-by-step guidance through the process of writing
• manageably short chapters focused on essential skills
• improved explanation of the CREAC formula (also known as the paradigm)
• innovative and vivid coverage of how to use storytelling in fact statements
• coverage of office memos, motion memos, and appellate briefs
• checklists and exercises throughout

Classes using Richard K.Neumann Jr. and Sheila Simon’s Legal Writing will have access to a unique and dynamic website with a wide range of features, including:

• many of Sheila Simon’s most creative and famous teaching tools
• audio recordings of teachers and writers talking about the writing process
• printable checklists for rewriting
• additional exercises
• additional coverage on letter-writing, client interviewing, punctuation, and more.

Hat tip to Mark E. Wojcik (John Marshall Law School, Chicago), Legal Writing Prof Blog here and here. [JH]

New Law Titles from Stanford University Press

Details below the fold for the following new books from Stanford UP. [JH]

• Files: Law and Media Technology by Cornelia Vismann
• The Constitution of Electoral Speech Law: The Supreme Court and Freedom of Expression in Campaigns and Elections by Brian K. Pinaire
• The Cultivation of Resentment: Treaty Rights and the New Right by Jeffrey R. Dudas
• The Permanent Tax Revolt: How the Property Tax Transformed American Politics by Isaac William Martin
• Global Justice: The Politics of War Crimes Trials by Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu
• Legal Realism Regained: Saving Realism from Critical Acclaim by Wouter de Been

Files
Law and Media Technology
Cornelia Vismann, Translated by Geoffrey Winthrop-Young

Cloth: $65.00
216 pp., 2008
ISBN-10: 0804751501
ISBN-13: 9780804751506

Paper: $24.95
ISBN-10: 080475151X
ISBN-13: 9780804751513

Book Description: Quod non est in actis, non est in mundo. (What is not on file is not in the world.) Once files are reduced to the status of stylized icons on computer screens, the reign of paper files appears to be over. With the epoch of files coming to an end, we are free to examine its fundamental influence on Western institutions. From a media-theoretical point of view, subject, state, and law reveal themselves to be effects of specific record-keeping and filing practices. Files are not simply administrative tools; they mediate and process legal systems. The genealogy of the law described in Vismann's Files ranges from the work of the Roman magistrates to the concern over one's own file, as expressed in the context of the files kept by the East German State Security. The book concludes with a look at the computer architecture in which all the stacks, files, and registers that had already created order in medieval and early modern administrations make their reappearance.

The Constitution of Electoral Speech Law
The Supreme Court and Freedom of Expression in Campaigns and Elections
Brian K. Pinaire

Cloth $60.00
368 pp., 2008
ISBN-10: 0804757240
ISBN-13: 9780804757249

Book Description: Bush v. Gore brought to the public's attention the significance of election law and the United States Supreme Court's role in structuring the rules that govern how campaigns and elections function in America. In this book, Brian K. Pinaire examines one expanding domain within this larger legal context: freedom of speech in the political process, or, what he terms, electoral speech law.

Specifically, Pinaire examines the Court's evolving conceptions of free speech in the electoral process and then traces the consequences of various debates and determinations from the post-World War II era to the present. In his analysis of the broad range of cases from this period, supplemented by four recent case study investigations, Pinaire explores competing visions of electoral expression in the marketplace of ideas, various methods for analyzing speech dilemmas, the multiple influences that shape the justices' notions of both the potential for and privileged status of electoral communication, and the ultimate implications of these Court rulings for American democracy.

The Cultivation of Resentment
Treaty Rights and the New Right
Jeffrey R. Dudas

Cloth $50.00
224 pp., 2008
ISBN-10: 0804758093
ISBN-13: 9780804758093

Book Description: The Cultivation of Resentment is one of the first book-length examinations of how grassroots conservative activists use rights discourse to pursue their political goals. It argues that conservative activists engage in frequent and sincere mobilizations of rights talk—a discourse that includes accusations that socially marginal Americans are seeking un-American, "special" rights that violate the nation's commitment to equal rights. The Cultivation of Resentment finds that such rights talk is central both to the identities of conservative activists and to the broad appeal of modern New Right politics.

However, through an in-depth case study of opposition on the Indian treaty rights, this book establishes that the impact of conservative rights talk is ultimately ambiguous. While conservative rights discourse effectively expresses the nationalistic resentment that saturates New Right politics, it deflects critical scrutiny from the actual causes of that resentment. By tracing the interplay of rights and resentment, The Cultivation of Resentment adds new insight to the prevailing scholarship on law and politics, which typically overlooks the importance of rights discourse for conservative politics.

The Permanent Tax Revolt
How the Property Tax Transformed American Politics
Isaac William Martin

Cloth $55.00
264 pp., 2008
ISBN-10: 0804758700
ISBN-13: 9780804758703

Paper $21.95
ISBN-10: 0804758719
ISBN-13: 9780804758710

Book Description: Tax cuts are such a pervasive feature of the American political landscape that the political establishment rarely questions them. Since 2001, Congress has abolished the tax on inherited wealth and passed a major income tax cut every year, including two of the three largest income tax cuts in American history despite a long drawn-out war and massive budget deficits. The Permanent Tax Revolt traces the origins of this anti-tax campaign to the 1970s, in particular, to the influence of grassroots tax rebellions as homeowners across the United States rallied to protest their local property taxes.

Isaac William Martin advances the provocative new argument that the property tax revolt was not a conservative backlash against big government, but instead a defensive movement for government protection from the market. The tax privilege that the tax rebels were defending was in fact one of the largest government social programs in the postwar era.

Global Justice
The Politics of War Crimes Trials
Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu

Paper $24.95
240 pp., 2008
ISBN-10: 0804759715
ISBN-13: 9780804759717

Book Description: In Global Justice, Moghalu examines the phenomenon of war crimes trials from an unusual, political perspective—that of an "anarchical" international society. He argues that, contrary to conventional wisdom, war crimes trials are neither motivated nor influenced solely by abstract notions of justice. Instead, war crimes trials are the product of the interplay of political forces that have led to an inevitable clash between globalization and sovereignty on the sensitive question of who should judge war criminals. From Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm to the Japanese Emperor Hirohito, from the trials of Milosevic, Saddam Hussein, and Charles Taylor to Belgium's attempts to enforce the contested doctrine of "universal jurisdiction," Moghalu renders a compelling tour de force of one of the most controversial subjects in world politics. He argues that, necessary though it was, international justice has run into a crisis of legitimacy. While international trials will remain a policy option, local or regional responses to mass atrocities will prove more durable.

Legal Realism Regained
Saving Realism from Critical Acclaim
Wouter de Been

Cloth $60.00
264 pp., 2008
ISBN-10: 0804756597
ISBN-13: 9780804756594

Book Description: Legal Realism Regained presents a comparison between the legal realists, a group of pragmatic legal theorists from the 1920s and 1930s, and critical legal studies, a movement of postmodern legal theory during the end of the twentieth century. The book argues for a return to legal realism and the classical pragmatism of John Dewey and William James and for a rejection of the postmodern critique of critical legal studies. It discusses the two movements with respect to three topics: their view of history, their view of social science, and their view of language.

Rejecting the claim that critical legal studies can be seen as the heir of legal realism, Legal Realism Regained argues that, with respect to each of these three topics, the realists still present a stronger argument than their more radical descendants.

Balkan's The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power

It's a rare thing when a law professor's book is turned into an award-winning documentary film and television miniseries. Rarer still when the book receives critical notice but The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power by Joel Bakan (University of British Columbia) has.

"Joel Bakan's The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power deserves a response. It is a serious challenge to all of us who believe that although large companies are a major cause of sustainability problems they must also be a crucial part of seeking and developing solutions. It is a particular challenge to anyone who promotes corporate social responsibility as a constructive approach to sustainable development [because} he argues that robust nongovernmental institutions and community activism, though vital contributors, can never be a substitute for government regulation"  -- Chris Marsden, Chair of Amnesty International UK Business Group and Chair of Trustees of the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre. [book review]

The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power (Free Press, US edition, 2004) is avaiable on Amazon. Check out the DVD on the book's website. The documentary is available on YouTube. The first part is displayed below. See the playlist for all 23 parts on YouTube. [JH]

Israeli-Palestinian Crisis Guide

CFR.org has released the latest installment of its award-winning Crisis Guide series. The newest guide takes an in-depth look at the history and complex political dynamics surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. [JH]

Robert Bennett Memoir Recommended from Tomorrow's Litigators (Law Students)

[Bennett*s legal career narrative] chronicles his highest-profile cases, often supplemented with detailed trial transcripts of his cross-examinations. These sections are likely to impress fellow trial lawyers or those familiar with trial practice. To the layperson, the skillfulness may be lost. -- Joshua S. Sellers, The Law School and the Department of Political Science, University of Chicago, Law and Politics Book Review

In the Ring: The Trials of a Washington Lawyer
by Robert S. Bennett

List Price: $27.50
Hardcover: 400 pages
Publisher: Crown; 1 edition (February 19, 2008)
ISBN-10: 0307394433
ISBN-13: 978-0307394439

Book Description: Robert S. Bennett has been a lawyer for more than forty years. In that time, he’s taken on dozens of high-profile and groundbreaking cases and emerged as the go-to guy for the nation’s elite. Bob Bennett gained international recognition as one of America’s best lawyers for leading the defense of President Bill Clinton in the Paula Jones case. But long before, and ever since, representing a sitting president, he has fought for justice for many famous (and some now infamous) clients. This is his story.

Born in Brooklyn and an amateur boxer in his youth, Bennett has always brought his street fighter’s mentality to the courtroom. His case history is a who’s who of figures who have dominated legal headlines: super lobbyist Tommy Corcoran, former Secretaries of Defense Clark Clifford and Caspar Weinberger, Marge Schott, and, most recently, New York Times reporter Judith Miller and former World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz. Bennett also served as special counsel to the Senate during the ABSCAM and Keating Five scandals and was a leading member of the National Review Board for the Protection of Children & Young People, created by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in response to the sex abuse allegations.

Taking the reader deep within his most intriguing and difficult cases, In the Ring shows how Bennett has argued for what’s right, won for his clients, and effected his share of change on the system. This is an intimate and compelling memoir of one lawyer’s attempt to fight hard and fair.

About the Author: Robert S. Bennett is the country’s leading criminal defense and crisis management lawyer for corporations and individuals in trouble. He has recently represented Enron, KPMG, and Health South. He is a partner with the firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife, the photographer Ellen Gilbert Bennett.

Constitutional Interpretation: Justice Thomas and Cass Sunstein

Check out Justice Thomas on Constitutional interpretation in the Wall Street Journal and Cass Sunstein's (Chicago) response in The New Republic. [JH]

Religion, Politics and Law in Contemporary Islam: Three Recent Titles for Law Library Collections

1. The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State by Noah Feldman

List Price: $22.95
Hardcover: 200 pages
Publisher: Princeton University Press (March 3, 2008)
ISBN-10: 0691120455
ISBN-13: 978-0691120454

Book Description: Western powers call it a threat to democracy. Islamist movements are winning elections on it. Terrorists use it to justify their crimes. What, then, is the sharia? Given the severity of some of its provisions, why is it popular among Muslims? Can the Islamic state succeed—should it?

Feldman reveals how the classical Islamic constitution governed through and was legitimated by law. He shows how executive power was balanced by the scholars who interpreted and administered the sharia, and how this balance of power was finally destroyed by the tragically incomplete reforms of the modern era. The result has been the unchecked executive dominance that now distorts politics in so many Muslim states. Feldman argues that a modern Islamic state could provide political and legal justice to today’s Muslims, but only if new institutions emerge that restore this constitutional balance of power.

The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State gives us the sweeping history of the traditional Islamic constitution—its noble beginnings, its downfall, and the renewed promise it could hold for Muslims and Westerners alike.

About the Author: Noah Feldman is professor at Harvard Law School. He is a contributing writer for the "New York Times Magazine" and an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is the author of Divided by God, What We Owe Iraq (Princeton), and After Jihad.

2. Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Shari'a by Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im (Harvard UP, 2008), recently featured on LLB here.

3. The Ulama in Contemporary Islam: Custodians of Change by Muhammad Qasim Zaman

Paperback: 312 pages
Publisher: Princeton University Press; New Ed edition (February 5, 2007)
ISBN-10: 0691130701
ISBN-13: 978-0691130705

Book Description: From the cleric-led Iranian revolution to the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan, many people have been surprised by what they see as the modern reemergence of an antimodern phenomenon. This book helps account for the increasingly visible public role of traditionally educated Muslim religious scholars (the `ulama) across contemporary Muslim societies. Muhammad Qasim Zaman describes the transformations the centuries-old culture and tradition of the `ulama have undergone in the modern era--transformations that underlie the new religious and political activism of these scholars. In doing so, it provides a new foundation for the comparative study of Islam, politics, and religious change in the contemporary world.

While focusing primarily on Pakistan, Zaman takes a broad approach that considers the Taliban and the `ulama of Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, India, and the southern Philippines. He shows how their religious and political discourses have evolved in often unexpected but mutually reinforcing ways to redefine and enlarge the roles the `ulama play in society. Their discourses are informed by a longstanding religious tradition, of which they see themselves as the custodians. But these discourses are equally shaped by--and contribute in significant ways to--contemporary debates in the Muslim public sphere.

This book offers the first sustained comparative perspective on the `ulama and their increasingly crucial religious and political activism. It shows how issues of religious authority are debated in contemporary Islam, how Islamic law and tradition are continuously negotiated in a rapidly changing world, and how the `ulama both react to and shape larger Islamic social trends. Introducing previously unexamined facets of religious and political thought in modern Islam, it clarifies the complex processes of religious change unfolding in the contemporary Muslim world and goes a long way toward explaining their vast social and political ramifications.

About the Author: Muhammad Qasim Zaman is Robert H. Niehaus '77 Professor of Near Eastern Studies and Religion at Princeton University. He is the author of Religion and Politics under the Early Abbasids and the editor, with Robert W. Hefner, of Schooling Islam: The Culture and Politics of Modern Muslim Education (Princeton).

Managing Online Forums

Managing Online Forums: Everything You Need to Know to Create and Run Successful Community Discussion Boards
by Patrick O'Keefe

List Price: $24.00
Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: AMACOM (April 10, 2008)
ISBN-10: 081440197X
ISBN-13: 978-0814401972 

Book Description (from the book's website): In this book, Patrick O’Keefe, owner of the iFroggy Network, shares his experiences in a straight forward, honest fashion and shows readers how to make the right decisions about every aspect of their forums, including:

• Creating an organizational structure
• Designing and launching their community
• Deciding on user options like avatars and private messaging
• Promoting and attracting members
• Utilizing technology to their benefit
• Developing and enforcing guidelines
• Choosing and managing moderators
• Shutting down users who disrupt and harm the community
• Involving their users and keeping the site interesting and inviting
• Generating revenue

What is talked about this book is not hypothetical - it consists of in use, battle-tested theories and solutions, making it so that when you must deal with these issues on your forums, you will be better equipped. Real life examples are cited throughout, including the actual user guidelines, staff member guidelines and more, from real communities.