“Rethinking Merger Analysis,” by Louis Kaplow ’81 (MIT Press)
Merger analysis should be rethought, writes Professor Louis Kaplow, because merger policy is “one of the most consequential domains of competition regulation throughout the world, and it has advanced greatly over the past half-century.” Plus, he adds, existing analysis has been problematic or underdeveloped. Kaplow examines subjects such as the price effects of mergers, merger efficiencies, the challenges of predicting the effects of proposed mergers, and the institutions that conduct merger reviews. He seeks to determine which mergers are more harmful or more beneficial, and to identify ways in which regulators sometimes fail to detect anticompetitive mergers.
“In Between and Across: Legal History Without Boundaries,” edited by Kenneth W. Mack ’91 and Jacob Katz Cogan (Oxford University Press)
These essays on legal history, co-edited by Professor Kenneth Mack, together offer a path for law to provide “a central plane on which to rethink the boundaries that often divide histories by region, subject, and method.” Topics include the nature of commerce in the 19th century, how the philanthropic North influenced the Black freedom struggle, and the movement of Indian students to the English Inns of Court for their legal education. Laura Weinrib ’03, a constitutional law professor at Harvard Law, also provides a contribution on how the American Civil Liberties Union shifted from defending political dissent and worker action to the modern conception of civil liberties for which it is now known.
“Aligning Election Law,” by Nicholas O. Stephanopoulos (Oxford University Press)
In most of America, voters are relatively centrist but the politicians who represent them seek policy outcomes that are closer to the ideological fringes, according to Professor Nicholas Stephanopoulos. He investigates the consequences of this misalignment between government outputs and voters’ preferences while considering ways to make political results more congruent with people’s views. The book applies his views on alignment to subjects including burdens on voting (such as voter ID laws), regulation of political parties, and money in politics. Although courts have been blind to misalignment, state actors like legislators and executives could address it, he notes. Misalignment matters, writes Stephanopoulos, because “[t]he people don’t truly rule if their views are systematically ignored by both their elected representatives and the laws that shape their lives.”
“Campus Free Speech: A Pocket Guide,” by Cass R. Sunstein ’78 (Harvard University Press)
While freedom of speech is essential to self-government and personal autonomy, writes University Professor Cass Sunstein, educational institutions need to restrict some speech in order to fulfill their mission. How to determine what those restrictions should be is the topic of his book. He presents a variety of scenarios occurring on campuses, such as student protest of unpopular causes and professors writing contentious opinions in public forums, and offers his views on acceptable university policies. Universities, he argues, should declare what they intend to prohibit with a high degree of clarity, promote safe spaces for a wide range of ideas, and take sides on public issues only for self-preservation.
“The World and Us,” by Roberto Mangabeira Unger LL.M. ’70 S.J.D. ’76 (Verso)
In his expansive work of philosophy, Professor Roberto Mangabeira Unger considers what he calls the “recurrent character of our existence: finitude and transcendence.” Sections of the book address the world and our knowledge of it; the human condition in a world in which everything changes; ethics as it relates to the conduct of life in the world today; and politics as a struggle over the future of society (a native of Brazil, Unger has served twice as the country’s minister of strategic affairs). Throughout history, he writes, society may be so oppressive that it seems to hand us a script that we are forced to enact. Nonetheless, he urges readers to do whatever they can to resist the script imposed on them.