New Books In Law

In 1962 Richard Nixon suffered a humiliating defeat in the California gubernatorial election, one that led him to declare an end to his career in politics. What followed was one of the most remarkable political comebacks in American history, one chronicled by Victor Li in his book Nixon in New York: How Wall Street Helped Richard Nixon Win the White House (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2018). It began with Nixon’s move to New York immediately after his defeat, one that Li notes placed him in the economic and media capital of the nation. He soon became a partner at a longtime Wall Street law firm, for which the political contacts he developed during his time in public office garnered considerable business. Yet Nixon remained involved in politics, working behind the scenes at the 1964 Republican convention and campaigning for Republican candidates throughout 1965 and 1966. As Li demonstrates, Nixon’s work at the firm not only earned him a sizable income, but it also provided him with key staffers for hi

The recent Supreme Court Masterpiece Cakeshop ruling showed the on-going debate between religious conservatives and advocates of LGBTQ rights. Much of this debate has been about the definition of religious freedom and how to balance religious rights against other important individual rights. This is the topic of the new book The Rhetoric of Religious Freedom in the United States (Lexington Books, 2017). Eric Miller has brought together over a dozen scholars to consider the language used to argue over these rights claims. Chapters focus on everything from Conservative Evangelicals to environmental policy to Fundamentalists response to Donald Trump. Eric C. Miller is assistant professor of communication studies at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

John Rawls is easily the most celebrated and influential political philosopher of the 20th Century, and his impact remains remarkably strong today.  The central concepts with which his theory of justice begins are now components of the philosophical vernacular: The Original Position, Veil of Ignorance, Primary Goods, and his Two Principles of Justice (especially the Difference Principle) all will be well known to the majority of professional philosophers.  It is less commonly acknowledged that the apparatus just referenced is but the beginning of his theory, and not its ultimate concern.  Throughout his work, Rawls is attempting to address a fundamental philosophical question: Can a society committed to the freedom and equality of its citizens yet arrange social institutions in a way that reliably cultivate within persons the attitudes and dispositions required for social justice? In John Rawls: Reticent Socialist (Cambridge UP, 2017), William A. Edmundson argues that Rawlsian justice calls for a socialist ec

Roosevelt University political science professor David Faris counsels Democrats to disregard procedural precedents and niceties, and pugnaciously wield power in his book, It’s Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics (Melville House, 2018). As Faris explains in this interview, he doesn’t mean Democrats should run smear campaigns against Republican candidates. He proposes creative and aggressive rules changes within the structure of Constitution. For example, he recommends Democrats scrap the legislative filibuster, end lifetime tenure for Supreme Court justices and break up California into seven states to expand Democratic power in the Senate. Faris argues that the Republican denial of the Merrick Garland Supreme Court nomination proves that parties do not suffer political consequences from playing political hardball. Furthermore, he argues that his reforms would make democracy work better, and not erode trust in democratic institutions. Bill Scher is a Contributin

It’s common to place the start of the War on Drugs with the Nixon or Reagan Administrations, but as Matthew Pembleton tells us, those are only phases II and III of a much longer drug war that began in the 1930s with the long-forgotten Federal Bureau of Narcotics. In his new book Containing Addiction: The Federal Bureau of Narcotics and the Origins of America’s Global Drug Wars (University of Massachusetts Press, 2017), Matt tell us about that agency’s history, the charismatic and controversial men who led it and served as its agents around the globe, and the ways in which the current opioid epidemic echoes an enduring pattern of drug use and misuse in the U.S. Stephen Pimpare is Senior Lecturer in the Politics & Society Program and Faculty Fellow at the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire. He is the author of The New Victorians (New Press, 2004), A Peoples History of Poverty in America (New Press, 2008), winner of the Michael Harrington Award, and Ghettos, Tramps and Welfare

Ian James Kidd is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at University of Nottingham with research interests in epistemology, vices, epistemic justice, and illness. He is a co-author of the recently published The Routledge Handbook of Epistemic Justice. The "Why We Argue" podcast is produced by the Humanities Institute at the University of Connecticut as part of the Humility and Conviction in Public Life project. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law

Jon D. Michaels, a professor of law at UCLA Law School, has written an argument in favor of the administrative state and against recent efforts to shift government functions to private contractors.  In Constitutional Coup: Privatization’s Threat to the American Republic (Harvard University Press, 2017), Professor Michaels contends that the administrative state of the New Deal and post-World War II periods was a state that rightly fulfilled state functions by having an administrative entity and its dedicated employees carry out regulatory functions, rule-making, and adjudication.  Professor Michaels rejects the claim that bureaucrats are a threat to the proper functioning of government; and instead argues that they are experts that serve as a counterweight to politically motivated appointed agency heads.  He sees in the modern administrative state a recreation of the separation of powers (legislative, executive, and judicial) that harkens back to the Founders’ concerns about consolidated power and tyranny. Pro

The Western concept of democracy has a lineage dating back to the classical world. Paul Cartledge’s book Democracy: A Life (Oxford University Press, 2016) details its origins in ancient Greece and its evolution of it as a theory over the course of the 2,500 years since then. As he explains, what people think of as “classical Greek” democracy was primarily the Athenian concept of it, which was one of several versions that emerged during the Hellenic era. Though typically viewed as at its peak during the days of the Athenian empire, Cartledge sees the “golden age” of democracy as taking place in the 4th century BCE rather than in the preceding one, a shift which attests to the endurance of democracy as a governing system. It was during Roman times when the practice of democracy declined, to the point where it was often seen as a failed or impractical system during the Middle Ages. It was not until the 17th century when democracy staged a comeback in the West, with its advocates in the 18th and 19th centuries ch

Appeals to “press freedom” can be heard from across the political spectrum. But what those appeals mean varies dramatically. Sam Lebovic, in his excellent new book, Free Speech and Unfree News: The Paradox of Press Freedom in America (Harvard University Press, 2016), traces the fraught history of that contested concept throughout the twentieth century. Beginning his analysis in the 1920s, Lebovic shows how conservative politicians, lawyers, and publishers began to define press freedom as freedom from state censorship, wrapped it in the first amendment, and fought New Deal attempts at regulation. Meanwhile, liberal politicians and journalists feared corporate control of the press as a threat to the democratic need for information, and advocated a freer and more trustworthy press. Not interested solely in the debates over press freedom, Lebovic also focuses on, what he calls, “the everyday politics of information.” He reveals how state classification practices and the political economy of the news fundamentally

​In The Talmud: A Biography (Princeton University Press, 2018), Barry Scott Wimpfheimer, associate professor of religious studies and law at Northwestern University, introduces the reader to the Babylonian Talmud, the most studied book in the Jewish canon. Professor Wimpfheimer focuses on one excerpt from the Talmud, showing how its reception, exegesis, and editing represents a process of reflexive critique and legal reasoning. ​A valuable text for scholars and general readers alike, The Talmud: A Biography helps the reader gain new appreciation for the Talmud as a dense tapestry of religious thought, philosophy, law, and ethics that continues to influence not only the Jewish religion, but religious and secular cultures and institutions worldwide. David Gottlieb will receive his PhD in the History of Judaism from the University of Chicago Divinity School in June.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Stephen Riley, a lecturer in the Law School of the University of Leicester in Britain, has written a philosophical work examining the concept of dignity and its role in legal theory and, to a degree, the application of law.  In Human Dignity and Law: Legal and Philosophical Investigations (Routledge, 2018), Riley argues that the role of human dignity should be recognized by courts and all of society, but he is wary of such a concept becoming a trump card in a court’s decision-making process.  He notes that the concerns of justice and equality need to be recognized by courts but court must be aware of the infrequent instances when the demands of dignity are in conflict with the demands of justice.  In this podcast we discuss the definition of human dignity, the author’s philosophical orientation, and the applications of the concept of dignity has been applied by courts in different settings. Ian J. Drake is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Law at Montclair State University. His scholarly intere

The use of our data and the privacy, or lack thereof, that we have when we go online has become a topic of increasing importance as technology becomes ubiquitous and more sophisticated. Governments, advocacy groups and individual citizens are demanding that action be taken to protect their valuable data. But what does this sporadic noise amount to? B.J. Mendelson in his book Privacy: And How to Get It Back (Curious Reads, 2017) argues that a complacent citizenry and the overly-intimate relationship that corporations have with government has led to massive breaches of people’s privacy. Mendelson humorously explains the way people’s data is used and abused as he tracks the long history of government surveillance leading to an explanation of, what he believes, could be the solution to the abuse of people’s privacy.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Christy Ford Chapin, an associate professor of history at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, has written a history of the funding of America’s health care system: Ensuring America’s Health: The Public Creation of the Corporate Health Care System (Cambridge University Press, 2015).  She begins with an account of the development of physicians’ practices in the mid-nineteenth century and traces the evolution of the American Medical Association’s role in shaping how physicians practiced medicine and how it was financed.  The advent of the insurance model for funding health care was a creation of the Progressive period and became dominant in the late 1930s, during the New Deal.  Chapin provides an account of the pitfalls of the insurance funding mechanism and recounts the battles between vested, competing interests, such as the AMA, independent physicians, corporate employers, labor unions, insurance companies (nonprofit and commercial), and the state and federal governments.  Each of these entities sha

In her book, Ugly Prey: An Innocent Woman and the Death Sentence That Scandalized Jazz Age Chicago (Chicago Review Press, 2017), Emilie Le Beau Lucchesi presents the story of Sabella Nitti, an Italian immigrant arrested in 1923 an accused of murdering her husband. Sabella was found guilty and became the first woman in Chicago sentenced to hang. Through meticulous research into court documents and other public records, Lucchesi shares the riveting narrative of Sabella’s case. Situating Sabella in the 1920s, and looking at the ways in which this case shows how the legal system set up to defend her failed Sabella at every turn, Lucchesi’s book walks readers through the trial where there was no evidence and no witnesses, but reporters and the jury knew one thing for certain, Sabella must be guilty: she was ugly. Describing how the press, judges, and juries decided the guilt or innocence of women based on their looks, Lucchesi examines how Sabella’s fellow inmates such as Beulah and Belva were able to charm their

A History of Infamy: Crime, Truth, and Justice in Mexico (University of California Press, 2017) explores the definitive changes that the justice system as well as criminal ideas and practices underwent during the 1920s-1950s. For his most recent book, Pablo Piccato investigated spaces, actors, and fictions that shaped the complicated relationship between crime, justice, and truth during the consolidation of the post-revolution Mexican state. Through a series of compelling arguments, the author shows how impunity, the lack of transparency in judicial processes, and infamy are related to a constant quest for truth and justice that the state could not provide to Mexicans.  From the abolition of the jury system in the 20s, to the emergence of crime fiction, the author shows that men and women, the press, detectives, policemen, and even murderers themselves, shaped both ideas and practices in regards to violence, law-breaking, and the normalization of injustice in the country. Pamela Fuentes is Assistant Professo

The United States leads the world in incarceration. That’s a problem, especially the disproportionate impact of “mass incarceration” on low-income men of color. In their new book Start Here: A Roadmap to Reducing Mass Incarceration (The New Press, 2018), Greg Berman and Julian Adler take us though a series of concrete, practical, and practicable steps that we could take to radically reduce the number of people we incarcerate while, at the same time, making our communities healthier and safer. Listen in. Stephen Pimpare is Senior Lecturer in the Politics and Society Program and Faculty Fellow at the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire. He is the author of The New Victorians (New Press, 2004), A People’s History of Poverty in America (New Press, 2008), winner of the Michael Harrington Award, and Ghettos, Tramps and Welfare Queens: Down and Out on the Silver Screen (Oxford University Press, 2017).Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How does the juvenile justice system impact the lives of the young people that go through it? In her new book, Trapped in a Vice: The Consequences of Confinement for Young People (Rutgers University Press, 2018), Alexandra Cox uses interviews and ethnographic data to analyze the juvenile justice system and incarceration. While the book focuses specifically on New York’s justice system, the take-aways and Cox’s analyses are relevant for anyone interested in incarceration in general. Using the voices and experiences of those she interviews to articulate her findings, Cox points out that young people often suffer the most in systems of social inequality. She elaborates clearly on concepts and main take-aways through the book, from the idea that these young people are expected to mature within an institution, and how this impacts their development. Cox uses really powerful examples and pinpoints important concepts for us to think further about: the definition of worthiness (i.e. worthy of “savin

In Children of Reunion: Vietnamese Adoptions and the Politics of Family Migrations (University of North Carolina Press, 2017), Allison Varzally documents the history of Vietnamese adoption in the United States during the second half of the twentieth century. Varzally adds to the growing literature on Southeast Asian Americans and on Asian international adoption by highlighting the distinctiveness of Vietnamese adoption for its liberal orientation and its expansive notion of kinship. Four chapters trace this history from its antiwar beginnings in the early Cold War; to Operation Babylift in 1975 and its controversial legal aftermath; to the federal legislation and social practices that shaped the “homecomings” of Amerasians in the 1980s; and, finally, to Vietnamese adoptees own attempts in the 1990s (and beyond) to find meaning in their journeys. Making ample use of oral history, Varzally tells stories that are both heart-rending and inspiring. They confirm that family formation was a central site

The Amistad Rebellion is usually remembered as the only instance in which a US court sent re-captured slaves back to Africa. Yet as Sharla Fett shows in her new book Recaptured Africans: Surviving Slave Ships, Detention, and Dislocation in the Final Years of the Slave Trade (University of North Carolina Press, 2017), the Amistad case is not exactly unique. By using the stories of re-captured Africans in detention in places like Key West, Florida and Charleston, South Carolina, Dr. Fett examines how pro-slavery and abolitionist factions used re-captives to argue their respective cases. She also examines the lives of re-captured slaves sent to “back” to Liberia, a place they had never been. Adam McNeil is a soon-to-be PhD student and Colored Conventions Project Scholar at the University of Delaware. He received his M.A in History at Simmons College and B.S. in History at Florida A&M University. He can be reached on Twitter @CulturedModesty.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/a

Jonathan Daly is a professor of History at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His newest book Crime and Punishment in Russia: A Comparative History from Peter the Great to Vladimir Putin (Bloomsbury, 2018), provides a comprehensive overview of the development of the criminal justice system in Russia from the 1700s to the present. Rather than following the typical narrative of Russia being a backwards, Asiatic state that struggled to modernize, Daly begins the book noting that “Russia developed as one of the most successful states in human history.” He highlights the achievements of the Russian state, such as the 1649 Ulozhenie, (which was one of the most detailed and elaborate law codes devised in the early modern world), Empress Elizabeth’s curtailment of capital punishment, the 1864 judicial reform (in which Russia became the first non-Western country to establish an independent judiciary functioning largely according to Western best practices), early Bolshevik criminal justice for reg