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Book Review

  • An Enduring Conversation

    December 6, 2012

    HLS Professor Bill Stuntz completed “The Collapse of American Criminal Justice” just a few month before his death from cancer at age 52. The book has been hailed as a masterwork and Stuntz called the leading thinker on criminal justice. His longtime friend HLS Professor Carol Steiker helped to shepherd the completed manuscript through its final stages of production. “It felt like a continued conversation with Bill.” says Steiker.

  • An Advocate Before the Bench

    December 6, 2012

    Nancy Gertner's two decades as a defense attorney in Boston as a self-described “revolutionary” and “radical lawyer” redoubled her belief in the inherent unfairness of many aspects of the criminal justice system, including its disparate impact on racial minorities. As she relates in her new book, it also laid the groundwork for her federal judgeship.

  • A Milestone But …

    December 6, 2012

    On the night Barack Obama ’91 was elected president of the United States, many people cried tears of joy. For many black people the tears held a special significance: They couldn’t believe they had lived to see this milestone. Yet their happiness also signified something sad about the moment, about the history of the country and about the problem of race in America that did not end with the election of the nation’s first black president, says Randall Kennedy.

  • Fear and Loathing

    December 6, 2012

    At a time when Americans are expressing record dissatisfaction with Washington, the publication this fall of Professor Lawrence Lessig’s latest book couldn’t be more opportune. “Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It” (Twelve) is an exhaustively researched and passionately argued indictment of Capitol Hill and the money-centered daily dance between lawmakers and lobbyists.

  • Illustration

    The Courts and Public Opinion

    October 1, 2012

    Michael Klarman’s scholarship has focused on the effect that court rulings have on social reform movements. He argues that when courts get ahead of public opinion, political backlash often follows. That’s what he found in an earlier book he wrote on race and the U.S. Supreme Court, and it is a phenomenon he has also observed in cases involving the death penalty and abortion.mIn his new book, “From the Closet to the Altar: Courts, Backlash, and the Struggle for Same-Sex Marriage” (Oxford), the HLS professor explores whether the same effect has taken place when it comes to same-sex marriage litigation.

  • Book Jacket

    Recent Faculty Books – Fall 2012

    October 1, 2012

    Professor Einer Elhauge ’86 is author of the e-book “Obamacare On Trial” (Edward Elgar), focused on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act case decided by the Supreme Court in June. Elhauge raises points that were not aired in the courtroom, including the fact that the constitutional framers themselves had approved mandates to buy health insurance.

  • Book Jacket

    A Theory of Connectivity

    October 1, 2012

    The highly connected nature of today’s world has all sorts of benefits—but all sorts of potential costs as well, from loss of control of private data to a world financial system so intertwined that when one part of it falls, it’s hard to keep other parts from toppling along with it. In “Interop: The Promise and Perils of Highly Interconnected Systems,” John Palfrey ’01 and Urs Gasser LL.M. ’03 draw on their work at the HLS Berkman Center for Internet & Society to start developing a “normative theory identifying what we want out of all this connectivity.”

  • Recent Faculty Books – Summer 2012

    July 1, 2012

    “After Sex? On Writing Since Queer Theory” (Duke), edited by Professor Janet Halley and Andrew Parker. Contributors to the development of queer studies offer personal reflections on the potential and limitations of the field, asking to what extent it is defined by a focus on sex and sexuality.

  • Elected vs. Appointed?

    July 1, 2012

    Today, about 90 percent of state judges must run for office, and the elections have become increasingly expensive and nasty. Assistant Professor Jed Handelsman Shugerman provides historical perspective on judicial elections and other methods of judicial selection in his new book, “The People’s Courts: Pursuing Judicial Independence in America” (Harvard, 2012).

  • ‘A Harmonious System of Mutual Frustration’

    July 1, 2012

    As Barack Obama ’91 was making criticism of Bush administration policies on terrorism a centerpiece of his campaign for the presidency in 2008, Jack Goldsmith offered a prediction: The next president, even if it were Obama, would not undo those policies. One of the key and underappreciated reasons, he wrote in a spring 2008 magazine article, was that “many controversial Bush administration policies have already been revised to satisfy congressional and judicial critics.”

  • The Balancing Act

    May 10, 2012

    In 1932, in a Philadelphia courtroom, a defense attorney representing a man accused of murder cross-examined a police officer. There was nothing unusual about this scene, except that the defense attorney, Raymond Pace Alexander ’23, was black, and the officer he was aggressively questioning was white. This scene is one of many dramatic moments in the new book by HLS Professor Kenneth Mack ’91, “Representing the Race: The Creation of the Civil Rights Lawyer.”

  • “Stones of Hope: How African Activists Reclaim Human Rights to Challenge Global Poverty” (Stanford University Press, November 2010) edited by Professor Lucie White ’81 and Jeremy Perelman S.J.D. ’11.

    Recent Faculty Books – Winter 2011

    December 6, 2011

    “Prospects for the Professions in China” (Routledge, 2010) edited by William P. Alford ’77, William Kirby and Kenneth Winston. Through its meditations on Chinese professional…

  • A Life’s Project and a Project’s Life

    December 6, 2011

    Dean Martha Minow answers seven questions about her new book, “In Brown’s Wake: Legacies of America’s Educational Landmark” (Oxford University Press, 2010).

  • Great minds that did not think alike

    December 6, 2011

    In “Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR’s Great Supreme Court Justices,” Feldman focuses on four men with remarkably diverse resumes, who, despite shared links to Roosevelt, often found themselves at odds once they joined the Court.

  • In new book, Benkler makes the case for “prosocial” systems design

    October 19, 2011

    For generations, the assumption that selfishness drives human behavior has shaped the design of social systems in which we live and work. In his new book “The Penguin and the Leviathan: The Triumph of Cooperation Over Self-Interest,” Harvard Law Professor Yochai Benkler ’94 rejects this assumption as a “myth” and proposes an alternative, refreshingly optimistic model that asserts our human traits of cooperation and collaboration.

  • Historic Failure

    July 1, 2011

    Part of the American Presidents Series, this volume, excerpted below, examines the life and political career of Andrew Johnson, possibly the nation’s worst president, according to Gordon-Reed.

  • Checks and Imbalances

    July 1, 2011

    Vermeule and Posner set out to explain why the traditional separations of power confining the executive have weakened over time—and why that’s not necessarily worrisome.

  • The Forum and the Tower book cover

    What Kind of Difference They Made

    July 1, 2011

    In her long career as a law professor, Mary Ann Glendon has seen students struggle to stay idealistic in an imperfect world. Will they lose their moral compass if they choose a life in politics? Risk irrelevance if they stick to academia? Glendon, a former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, has explored how great statespersons and philosophers grappled with similar questions.

  • Laws, Outlaws, and Terrorists

    Looking for the Third Paradigm

    January 1, 2011

    Assistant Professor Gabriella Blum LL.M. ’01 S.J.D. ’03 is a specialist in the laws of war. Professor Philip Heymann ’60 is an expert in domestic law enforcement. With these different backgrounds, they decided to teach a course together on counterterrorism.

  • Recent Faculty Books – Fall 2014

    November 21, 2010

    In his essays, Samuel Moyn considers topics such as human rights and the Holocaust, international courts, and liberal internationalism. Skeptical of humanitarian justifications for intervention, he writes,“[H]uman rights history should turn away from ransacking the past as if it provided good support for the astonishingly specific international movement of the last few decades.”

  • Human Dignity, Democracy and the Loaded Gun

    September 27, 2010

    “Because It Is Wrong: Torture, Privacy and Presidential Power in the Age of Terror” (Norton, 2010) by father-and-son authors Charles Fried and Gregory Fried, explores three issues presented by Bush administration policies, primarily from ethical but also from historical and legal perspectives: torture; eavesdropping, surveillance and the right to privacy; and executive prerogative.

  • Recent Faculty Books – Summer 2010

    July 1, 2010

    Professor Charles Ogletree Jr. ’78 uses this incident as a lens through which to explore issues of race and class, with the goal of creating a more just legal system for all.

  • Censorship Without Borders

    July 1, 2010

    When, in February, Internet law expert Professor John G. Palfrey ’01 spoke at a gathering of the Harvard Law School American Constitution Society, he asked his audience to consider this trio of circumstances.

  • Up in the Air

    July 1, 2010

    The title of Professor Mark Tushnet’s “Why the Constitution Matters” is something of a misnomer.

  • Fighting on Several Fronts

    April 1, 2010

    In his book "Negotiauctions: New Dealmaking Strategies for a Competitive Marketplace,” Professor Guhan Subramanian says that, traditionally, academics have looked at deals through one of two lenses. One branch of research examines auction theory, with roots in game theory and microeconomics. Another looks at negotiations, combining microeconomics with experimental economics, social psychology, behavior economics and law.

  • Bargaining with the Devil

    February 7, 2010

    In the most recent U.S. presidential election, the candidates debated the wisdom of negotiating with enemies. But such a debate is not confined to political leaders. Whether it’s a dispute between countries, businesses or family members, the parties involved face a crucial decision. And Robert Mnookin ’68 offers a guide to making the right one in his new book, “Bargaining With the Devil: When to Negotiate, When to Fight” (Simon & Schuster).

  • Recent Faculty Books – Winter 2010

    January 1, 2010

    “The Road to Abolition?: The Future of Capital Punishment in the United States” (New York University Press, 2009), edited by Professor Charles Ogletree Jr. ’78 and Austin Sarat, takes on an interdisciplinary exploration of the debate surrounding the death penalty at the turn of the 21st century.

  • First Fiction

    January 1, 2010

    “Stubborn as a Mule,” is set at a small liberal arts college in Maine. The school’s president, a right-wing economist, tries to unseat a Republican Senate moderate (and HLS grad).

  • Summer 2009

    Recent Faculty Books – Summer 2009

    July 1, 2009

    “No Place to Hide: Gang, State, and Clandestine Violence in El Salvador” (Harvard University Press, 2009), by Clinical Professor James Cavallaro and Spring Miller ’07, analyzes the…

  • US Capitol building casting shadow over White House

    An Uncommon Critique of the Common Law

    January 16, 2009

    Professor Adrian Vermeule’s newest book is likely to raise a few judicial eyebrows. “Law and the Limits of Reason,” just published by Oxford University Press, is a broad-based criticism of the dominant role played by courts in the American lawmaking process.

  • Chilling Zone illustration

    Chilling Zones in Killing Zones

    December 1, 2008

    At first, the notion that Israel could sit down with its sworn enemies and achieve a limited agreement to protect civilians seemed far-fetched to Gabriella Blum LL.M. ’01 S.J.D. ’03. The year was 1997, Blum was a young officer in the Israel Defense Forces, and she’d just been assigned to a group with the task of monitoring that noble, if dubious, effort.

  • The Compliance Man

    December 1, 2008

    For all his eloquence and conviction, Jack Goldsmith is a quiet man. For three years, he remained silent about his brief and controversial stint as head of the Office of Legal Counsel in George W. Bush’s Department of Justice. And even following the much-publicized publication of his book “The Terror Presidency” in September, Goldsmith does not relish the steady demand for comment about his Department of Justice tenure.

  • Intelligent Design

    October 10, 2008

    Faced with important decisions about their lives, people often make pretty bad choices—choices they would not have made if they paid full attention and possessed complete information, unlimited cognitive abilities, and complete self-control. To take just one example, many people never get around to joining their employer’s retirement savings plan, even when it is heavily subsidized.

  • Urban Legend

    September 15, 2008

    “City Bound: How States Stifle Urban Innovation,” forthcoming from Cornell University Press in December, examines how state laws shackle cities. Barron and Frug look at how state law determines what cities can and cannot do to raise revenue, control land use and improve schools.

  • Tax Policy, Writ Large

    September 10, 2008

    In a new book, Professor Louis Kaplow '81 "steps back and considers the relationships among the parts." The book -- “The Theory of Taxation and Public Economics” (Princeton 2008) -- stands to secure him a place in the firmament of public economists and scholars in public finance.

  • Constitutional Ink—Visible, and Invisible

    September 3, 2008

    The U.S. Constitution is 219 years old now, and the revolutionary system of government it created has survived and spread across the globe. No wonder many Americans consider it an almost sacred document, the final say on governmental powers and individual rights.

  • Recent Faculty Books – Fall 2008

    September 1, 2008

    “Security in Paraguay: Analysis and Responses in Comparative Perspective” (Harvard University Press, 2008) is based on two years of research by the HLS International…

  • Recent Faculty Books – Summer 2008

    July 1, 2008

    In “Finding Jefferson: A Lost Letter, a Remarkable Discovery, and the First Amendment in an Age of Terrorism” (Wiley, 2007), Professor Alan Dershowitz contemplates modern-day First Amendment…

  • A Labor of Love on Love’s Labors

    July 1, 2008

    As a 3L at Yale Law School in the mid-1960s, Charles Donahue studied a series of decisions by Pope Alexander III (1159-1181) that became the basis of marriage law in Western Europe for the next three centuries. At the time, he didn’t realize how they would come to rule his own life.

  • Filling in the Gaps

    July 1, 2008

    Most judges, faced with the task of interpreting unclear statutes, want to do the right thing, says Harvard Law School Professor Einer Elhauge ’86. Unfortunately, it isn’t always easy.

  • Mightier Than the S-word

    July 1, 2008

    Randall Kennedy knows what it’s like to be called a sellout. Throughout his 24-year career at Harvard Law School, Kennedy has developed a reputation as a professor who is not afraid to challenge orthodoxies—sometimes to the alarm of liberals and black Americans.

  • Sharia as Backlash

    April 2, 2008

    Professor Noah Feldman has done plenty of thinking about the intersection of religion and law, particularly in the Arab World.

  • Recent Faculty Books – Summer 2007

    July 1, 2007

    In “Blasphemy: How the Religious Right Is Hijacking Our Declaration of Independence” (John Wiley & Sons, 2007), Professor Alan M. Dershowitz contends that fundamentalist Christian political activists are misusing the declaration to Christianize America.

  • Boardwalk, Park Place—and The Hague

    July 1, 2007

    Headlines on any given day underscore the increasing globalization of antitrust law and economics—for example, “Apple iTunes charged by EC with restrictive pricing practices.”

  • In legal scholarship, what defines staying power?

    April 1, 2007

    What does it mean to 'think like a lawyer' - in particular, an American lawyer? After wrestling with that question for years, Harvard Law Professors David Kennedy '80 and William W. Fisher III '82 have given us an anthology of the law review articles they believe yield the answer.

  • Recent Faculty Books – Spring 2007

    April 1, 2007

    “Criminal Procedure Stories” (Foundation Press, 2006), edited by Professor Carol Steiker ’86, presents the stories behind the major Supreme Court rulings that have shaped criminal procedure.

  • Professor David Kennedy ’80

    Law in the arsenal

    September 22, 2006

    International law professor David Kennedy was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam era, but during his early years teaching at Harvard Law School he realized it was time to rethink his position on the valid use of military force.

  • Split Decisions book cover

    Breathing new life into feminism

    September 7, 2006

    Janet Halley spent six years writing "Split Decisions: How and Why to Take a Break from Feminism" (Princeton University Press, 2006), a groundbreaking book examining the contradictions and limitations of feminism in the law.

  • Recent Faculty Books – Fall 2006

    September 1, 2006

    In “Judging under Uncertainty: An Institutional Theory of Legal Interpretation” (Harvard University Press, 2006), Professor Adrian Vermeule ’93 takes up the question: How should judges interpret statutes and the Constitution?

  • Assistant Professor Adriaan Lanni studies the rhetoric and speeches of Athenian law.

    From Here to Modernity

    July 23, 2006

    Scholars have long been fascinated by the democracy of classical Athens and the ways it is mirrored in democratic governments of today. Athenian law, on the other hand, has received little attention, since no modern legal system is descended from it.