“Taking the Stand: My Life in the Law,” by Professor Alan Dershowitz (Crown). A memoir that explores the many facets of the author’s life. In addition to identifying the people and institutions that influenced him the most, it also describes how the law has changed over the past half century. (See story.)
“Law and Economics with Chinese Characteristics: Institutions for Promoting Development in the Twenty-First Century,” edited by Professor David Kennedy ’80, faculty director of HLS’s Institute for Global Law and Policy, and Joseph E. Stiglitz (Oxford). With contributions from scholars from both China and the West, the volume examines issues including property and legal rights, centralization and decentralization, and the role of the judiciary in the expanding market economy of China. Each author, write the editors, “has something important to contribute to our understanding of the potential significance of diverse legal forms for the future of Chinese market capitalism.”
“The New Black: What Has Changed—and What Has Not—with Race in America,” edited by Professor Kenneth W. Mack ’91 and Guy-Uriel Charles (New Press). The volume presents essays that consider questions that look beyond the main focus of the civil rights era: to lessen inequality between black people and white people. The contributors, including HLS Professor Lani Guinier, write on topics ranging from group identity to anti-discrimination law to implicit racial biases, revealing often overlooked issues of race and justice in a supposed post-racial society.