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. 

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Humans as a Service

Jeremias Prassl, Humans as a Service: The Promise and Perils of Work in the Gig Economy (Oxford University Press, 2018).

As courts and governments around the world begin to grapple with the gig economy, Humans as a Service explores the challenges of on-demand work, and explains how we can ensure decent working conditions, protect consumers, and foster innovation. Employment law plays a central role in levelling the playing field: gigs, tasks, and rides are work -- and should be regulated as such. 

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Chokehold

 Paul Butler, Chokehold: Policing Black Men (New Press, 2017).

In his no-holds-barred style, Butler, whose scholarship has been featured on 60 Minutes and published widely, uses new data to demonstrate that white men commit the majority of violent crimes in the United States. For example, a white woman is ten times more likely to be raped by a white male acquaintance than to be the victim of a violent crime perpetrated by a black man. Butler also frankly discusses the problem of black male violence and how to keep communities safer -- without relying as much on police. 

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The Whiteness of Wealth

 Dorothy A. Brown, The Whiteness of Wealth: How the Tax System Impoverishes Black Americans -- and How We Can Fix It (Crown, 2021). 

In The Whiteness of Wealth, Brown draws on decades of cross-disciplinary research to show that tax law isn't as color-blind as she'd once believed. She takes us into her adopted city of Atlanta, introducing us to families across the economic spectrum whose stories demonstrate how American tax law rewards the preferences and practices of white people while pushing black people further behind. From attending college to getting married to buying a home, black Americans find themselves at a financial disadvantage compared to their white peers. The results are an ever-increasing wealth gap and more black families shut out of the American dream. 

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U.S. Labor Law for the 21st Century

Richard Bales & Charlotte Garden, The Cambridge Handbook of U.S. Labor Law for the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge University Press, 2020).

Designed to appeal to those being introduced to the field as well as experts seeking new insights, this book demonstrates how federal labor law is fail
ing today's workers and disempowering unions; how union jobs pay better than nonunion jobs and help to increase the wages of even nonunion workers; and how, when union jobs vanish, the wage premium also vanishes. At the same time, the book offers a range of solutions from the radical, such as a complete overhaul of federal labor law, to the incremental, including reforms that could be undertaken by federal agencies on their own. 

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