Norman S. Poser (Brooklyn Law School). Lord Mansfield: Justice in the Age of Reason (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2013).
"Mr. Poser offers us a fascinating portrait.
Awarded an earldom by George III, Mansfield was a typical 18th-century
grandee, ruthlessly ambitious and casually venal. His career made him
extremely rich, and his guarded political style often appeared
unscrupulously calculated to accelerate his own advancement. But his
mind was extraordinary, and he worked with legendary intensity. . . . Mansfield's judgments
ingrained themselves into the legal culture of the English-speaking
world. Modern rules governing the use of expert testimony, for instance,
trace to Mansfield. The U.S. Supreme Court, Mr. Poser informs
us, has cited Mansfield more than 300 times, on issues from defamation
to parental rights."
—Jeffrey Collins
E.T. Jacques. Charles Dickens in Chancery: Being an Account of his Proceedings in Respect of the "Christmas Carol" with Some Gossip in Relation to the Old Law Courts at Westminster (Longmans, Green and Co., 1914).
An account of Dickens' successful lawsuit against publishers who copied and sold A Christmas Carol (retitled as "A Christmas Ghost Story") without permission. The appendix includes the original pleadings as well as newspaper articles relating to the case.
Stephen M. Feldman (University of Wyoming). Please Don't Wish Me a Merry Christmas (New York University Press, 1997).
"In Please Don't Wish Me a Merry Christmas,
Stephen M. Feldman . . . argues that
the separation of church and state primarily manifests and reinforces
Christian domination in American society. Furthermore, Feldman reveals
that the separation of church and state did not first arise in the
United States. Rather, it has slowly evolved as a political and
religious development through western history, beginning with the
initial appearance of Christianity as it contentiously separated from
Judaism."
—Publisher's website
Lucas Hilderbrand (UC Irvine). Inherent Vice: Bootleg Histories of Videotape and Copyright (Duke University Press, 2009).
“By taking up the theme of analog videotape bootlegging in an era of
aggressive digital rights management, Lucas Hilderbrand provides a
timely and important window on the issues at stake in the creative
commons movement. At the same time, he makes extremely interesting and
valuable contributions to scholarship on the aesthetics of new media
through his explorations of the affective dimensions of videotape, the
implications of its ephemeral quality, and the interactivity its new
technologies enabled.”
—Timothy Lenoir, Duke University
Nancy S. Kim (California Western). Wrap Contracts: Foundations and Ramifications (Oxford University Press, 2013).
"[Nancy Kim] explains how businesses and existing law unfairly burden users and create a coercive contracting environment that forces users to 'accept' in order to participate in modern life. Kim's central thesis is that how a contract is presented affects and reveals the intent of the parties. She proposes doctrinal solutions to fairly balance the burdens of wrap contracts between businesses and consumers."
—Wrap Contracts book jacket
Stephen B. Wicker (Cornell University). Cellular Convergence and the Death of Privacy (Oxford University Press, 2013).
"Cellular technology has always been a surveillance technology, but 'cellular convergence'—the tendency for all forms of communication to devolve onto the cellular handset—has dramatically increased the impact of that surveillance. . . . The story [Wicker] tells is one of a technology that is changing the face of politics and economics, but in ways that remain highly uncertain."
—Cellular Convergence book jacket
Adam Sitze (Amherst College). The Impossible Machine (The University of Michigan Press, 2013).
"Adam Sitze meticulously traces the origins of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission to two well-established instruments of colonial and imperial governance: the jurisprudence of indemnity and the commission of inquiry. This genealogy provides a fresh, though counterintuitive, understanding of the TRC's legal, political, and cultural importance. The TRC's genius, Sitze contends, is not the substitution of 'forgiving' restorative justice for 'strict' legal justice but rather the innovative adaptation of colonial law, sovereignty, and government."
—The Impossible Machine book jacket
James L. Gibson (Washington University, St. Louis). Overcoming Historical Injustices: Land Reconciliation in South Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2009).
“Overcoming Historical Injustices is the last entry in James L. Gibson's 'overcoming' trilogy on South Africa's transformation from apartheid to democracy. Focusing on the issue of historical land dispossessions - the taking of African land under colonialism and apartheid - this book investigates the judgments South Africans make about the fairness of their country's past.”
—Cambridge University Press website
Timothy D. Lytton (Albany Law School). Kosher (Harvard University Press, 2013).
"Kosher is one terrific book. It's a wonderfully entertaining account of the squabbles, finger-pointing, and cutthroat competition that turned kosher certification from scandalous corruption to a respectable—and highly profitable—business. Today, if food is labeled kosher, it is kosher, which is more than can be said of most claims on food labels."
—Marion Nestle, New York University
Mark Tushnet (Harvard Law School). In the Balance (W. W. Norton & Company, 2013).
"Covering the legal philosophies that have informed decisions on major cases such as the Affordable Care Act, the Voting Rights Act, and DOMA; the political structures behind Court appointments; and the face-off between John Roberts and Elena Kagan for intellectual dominance of the Court, In the Balance is a must-read for anyone looking for fresh insight into the Court's impact on the everyday lives of Americans."
—In the Balance book jacket.
Austin Sarat & Martha Merrill Umphrey (Amherst College). Reimagining To Kill a Mockingbird (University
of Massachusetts Press, 2013).
"Fifty years after the release of the film version of Harper Lee's acclaimed novel To Kill a Mockingbird, this collection of original essays takes a fresh look at a classic text through the interdisciplinary lens of law and humanities scholarship. The readings peel back the film's visual representation of the many-layered social world of Maycomb, Alabama, offering sometimes counterintuitive insights through the prism of provocative contemporary theoretical and interpretive questions."
—Reimagining To Kill a Mockingbird book jacket
Norman S. Poser (Brooklyn Law School). Lord Mansfield: Justice in the Age of Reason (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2013).
