Feminist War on Crime

Aya Gruber, The Feminist War on Crime: The Unexpected Role of Women's Liberation in Mass Incarceration (University of California Press, 2020).

Former public defender Aya Gruber documents how zero-tolerance laws and policies aimed at combating sexual and domestic violence -- advocated for by feminists -- can actually make women less safe and more vulnerable. Deploying vivid cases and unflinching analysis, The Feminist War on Crime shows how mandatory arrests, no-drop prosecutions, forced separation, and incarceration exacerbate social inequalities by expanding a fundamentally flawed criminal justice system, often without offering women safety or justice. 

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Adventures of a Jazz Age Lawyer

Gary A. Rosen, Adventures of a Jazz Age Lawyer: Nathan Burkan and the Making of American Popular Culture (University of California Press, 2020). 

Gary A. Rosen tells stories of dramatic and uproarious courtroom confrontations, scandalous escapades of the rich and famous, and momentous clashes of powerful political, economic, and cultural forces. Out of these conflicts, the United States emerged as the world's leading exporter of creative energy. Adventures of a Jazz Age Lawyer is an engaging look at the life of Nathan Burkan, a captivating history of entertainment and intellectual property law in the early twentieth century, and a rich source of new discoveries for anyone interested in the spirit of the Jazz Age. 

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An Aristocracy of Critics

Stephen Bates, An Aristocracy of Critics: Luce, Hutchins, Niebuhr, and the Committee that Redefined Freedom of the Press (Yale University Press, 2020). 

In 1943, Time Inc. editor-in-chief Henry R. Luce sponsored the greatest collaboration of intellectuals in the twentieth century. He and University of Chicago president Robert Maynard Hutchins summoned the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, the Pulitzer-winning poet Archibald MacLeish, and ten other preeminent thinkers to join the Commission on Freedom of the Press. They spent three years wrestling with subjects that are as pertinent as ever: partisan media and distorted news, activists who silence rather than rebut their opponents, conspiracy theories spread by shadowy groups, and the survivability of American democracy in a post-truth age. 

-Publisher's Description