Schooling Jim Crow: The Fight for Atlanta's Booker T. Washington High School and the Roots of Black Protest Politics

Jay Winston Driskell, Jr. (Hood College), Schooling Jim Crow (University of Virginia Press, 2015).


"In 1919 the NAACP organized a voting bloc powerful enough to compel the city of Atlanta to budget $1.5 million for the construction of schools for black students. This victory would have been remarkable in any era, but in the context of the Jim Crow South it was revolutionary. Schooling Jim Crow tells the story of this little-known campaign, which happened less than thirteen years after the Atlanta race riot of 1906 and just weeks before a wave of anti-black violence swept the nation in the summer after the end of World War I. Despite the constant threat of violence, Atlanta’s black voters were able to force the city to build five black grammar schools and Booker T. Washington High School, the city’s first publicly funded black high school. Schooling Jim Crow reveals how they did it and why it matters."
                                                                          —Publisher's Website

The Legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Scott Dodson (ed.) (Hastings College of Law). The Legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Cambridge University Press, 2015).

"Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a legal icon. In more than four decades as a lawyer, professor, appellate judge, and associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Ginsburg has influenced the law and society in real and permanent ways. This book chronicles and evaluates the remarkable achievements Ruth Bader Ginsburg has made over the past half century. Including chapters written by prominent court watchers and leading scholars from law, political science, and history, it offers diverse perspectives on an array of doctrinal areas and on different time periods in Ginsburg's career. Together, these perspectives document the impressive legacy of one of the most important figures in modern law."
—Publisher's website

Interactive Democracy: The Social Roots of Global Justice

Carol C. Gould (Hunter College). Interactive Democracy: The Social Roots of Global Justice (Cambridge University Press, 2014).


"How can we confront the problems of diminished democracy, pervasive economic inequality, and persistent global poverty? Is it possible to fulfill the dual aims of deepening democratic participation and achieving economic justice, not only locally but also globally? Carol C. Gould proposes an integrative and interactive approach to the core values of democracy, justice, and human rights, looking beyond traditional politics to the social conditions that would enable us to realize these aims. Her innovative philosophical framework sheds new light on social movements across borders, the prospects for empathy and solidarity with distant others, and the problem of gender inequalities in diverse cultures, and also considers new ways in which democratic deliberation can be enhanced by online networking and extended to the institutions of global governance. Her book will be of great interest to scholars and upper-level students of political philosophy, global justice, social and political science, and gender studies." 
—Publisher's website

Electing the Senate: Indirect Democracy before the Seventeenth Amendment

Wendy J. Schiller (Brown University) & Charles Stewart III (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Electing the Senate: Indirect Democracy before the Seventeenth Amendment (Princeton University Press, 2014).

"From 1789 to 1913, U.S. senators were not directly elected by the people—instead the Constitution mandated that they be chosen by state legislators. This radically changed in 1913, when the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, giving the public a direct vote. Electing the Senate investigates the electoral connections among constituents, state legislators, political parties, and U.S. senators during the age of indirect elections. Wendy Schiller and Charles Stewart find that even though parties controlled the partisan affiliation of the winning candidate for Senate, they had much less control over the universe of candidates who competed for votes in Senate elections and the parties did not always succeed in resolving internal conflict among their rank and file. Party politics, money, and personal ambition dominated the election process, in a system originally designed to insulate the Senate from public pressure."

—Publisher's website

Criminalization: The Political Morality of the Criminal Law

R.A. Duff, Lindsay Farmer, S.E. Marshall, Massimo Renzo, and Victor Tadros (eds.). Criminalization: The Political Morality of the Criminal Law (Oxford University Press, 2014).

"The fourth book in the [Criminalization] series examines the political morality of the criminal law, exploring general principles and theories of criminalization. Chapters provide accounts of the criminal law in the light of ambitious theories about moral and political philosophy - republicanism and contractarianism, or reflect upon on the success of important theories of criminalization by viewing them in a novel light. Ideas that are fundamental to any complete theory of the criminal law - liberty, harm, and the effect on victims - are investigated in depth. Sociological investigation of the criminal law grounds a critical investigation into the principles of criminalization, both as a legislative matter, and with respect to criminalization practices, in contemporary and historical contexts."
—Publisher's website

Religious Actors and International Law

Ioana Cismas (New York University). Religious Actors and International Law (Oxford University Press, 2014).


"This book assesses whether a new category of religious actors has been constructed within international law. Religious actors, through their interpretations of the religion(s) they are associated with, uphold and promote, or indeed may transform, potentially oppressive structures or discriminatory patterns. This study moves beyond the concern that religious texts and practices may be incompatible with international law, to provide an innovative analysis of how religious actors themselves are accountable under international law for the interpretations they choose to put forward."—Publisher's description

Tyrannicide: Forging an American Law of Slavery in Revolutionary South Carolina and Massachusetts

Emily Blanck (Rowan University). Tyrannicide (University of Georgia Press, 2014).

"Tyrannicide uses a captivating narrative to unpack the experiences of slavery and slave law in South Carolina and Massachusetts during the Revolutionary Era. In 1779, during the midst of the American Revolution, thirty-four South Carolina slaves escaped aboard a British privateer and survived several naval battles until the Massachusetts brig Tyrannicide led them to Massachusetts. Over the next four years, the slaves became the center of a legal dispute between the two states. The case affected slave law and highlighted the profound differences between how the 'terrible institution' was practiced in the North and the South, in ways that would foreground issues eventually leading to the Civil War."

—Publisher's description