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New Books in Law
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.com Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/…
Episodes
New Books in LawJoshua Fershee, “Energy Law: A Context and Practice Casebook” (Carolina Academic Press, 2014)
Energy Law: A Context and Practice Casebook (Carolina Academic Press, 2014) by Joshua Fershee is a new casebook designed to better prepare students for…
New Books in LawSusan Haack, “Evidence Matters: Science, Proof, and Truth in the Law” (Cambridge UP, 2014)
Our legal systems are rooted in rules and procedures concerning the burden of proof, the weighing of evidence, the reliability and admissibility of testimony…
New Books in LawGuy Chet, “The Ocean is a Wilderness: Atlantic Piracy and the Limits of State Authority, 1688-1856” (U of Massachusetts Press, 2014)
Guy Chet, Associate Professor of early American and military history at the University of North Texas, in his book The Ocean is a Wilderness: Atlantic Piracy…
New Books in LawJeremy Lipschultz, “Social Media Communication: Concepts, Practices, Data, Law, and Ethics” (Routledge, 2014)
Social media is a phenomenon that continues to grow and attract much attention in the form of consternation, commentary, criticism and scholarly research. Any…
New Books in LawOvamir Anjum, “Politics, Law, and Community in Islamic Thought: The Taymiyyan Moment” (Cambridge UP, 2012)
In Politics, Law, and Community in Islamic Thought: The Taymiyyan Moment (Cambridge University Press, 2012), Ovamir Anjum explores a timely topic, even though…
New Books in LawMarianne Constable, “Our Word is Our Bond: How Legal Speech Acts” (Stanford UP, 2014)
Our Word is Our Bond: How Legal Speech Acts (Stanford UP, 2014), by UC Berkeley Professor of Rhetoric Marianne Constable, impels its readers to reassess the…
New Books in LawBruce Ackerman, “We the People, Volume 3: The Civil Rights Revolution” (Harvard UP, 2013)
Bruce Ackerman is the Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University. His book, We the People, Volume 3: The Civil Rights Revolution…
New Books in LawMichael Bryant, “Eyewitness to Genocide: The Operation Reinhard Death Camp Trials, 1955-1966” (University of Tennessee Press, 2014)
My marginal comment, recorded at the end of the chapter on the Belzec trial in Michael Bryant‘s fine new book Eyewitness to Genocide: The Operation Reinhard…
New Books in LawNick Smith, “Justice through Apologies: Remorse, Reform, and Punishment” (Cambridge UP, 2014)
Most people say “I’m sorry” a lot. After all, we make a lot of mistakes, most of them minor, so we don’t mind apologizing and expect our apologies to be…
New Books in LawDoron S. Ben-Atar and Richard D. Brown, “Taming Lust: Crimes Against Nature in the Early Republic” (University of Pennsylvania, 2014)
Bestiality is more often the subject of jokes than legal cases nowadays, and so it was in late eighteenth-century western New England, when, strangely, two…
New Books in LawAustin Sarat, “Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America’s Death Penalty” (Stanford UP, 2014)
When we discuss the death penalty we usually ask two questions: 1) should the state be in the business of killing criminals?; and 2) if so, how should the…
New Books in LawOlivier Zunz, “Philanthropy in America: A History” (Princeton UP, 2014)
Olivier Zunz is the author of Philanthropy in America: A History (Princeton University Press 2014). The paperback addition of the book has recently been…
New Books in LawMorris B. Hoffman, “The Punisher’s Brain: The Evolution of Judge and Jury” (Cambridge UP, 2014)
Why do we feel guilty–and sometimes hurt ourselves–when we harm someone? Why do we become angry–and sometimes violent–when we see other people being harmed?…
New Books in LawMarci A. Hamilton, “God vs. the Gavel: Religion and the Rule of Law” (Cambridge UP, 2014)
The constitution guarantees Americans freedom of religious practice and freedom from government interference in the same same. But what does religious liberty…
New Books in LawCornelia H. Dayton and Sharon V. Salinger, “Robert Love’s Warnings” (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014)
In early America, the practice of “warning out” was unique to New England, a way for the community to regulate those who might fall into poverty and need…
New Books in LawLawrence Goldstone, “Birdmen: The Wright Brothers, Glenn Curtiss, and the Battle to Control the Skies” (Ballentine, 2014)
In Birdmen: The Wright Brothers, Glenn Curtiss, and the Battle to Control the Skies (Ballentine Books, 2014), Lawrence Goldstone recounts the discovery and…
New Books in LawFederico Fabbrini, “Fundamental Rights in Europe: Challenges and Transformations in Comparative Perspective” (Oxford University Press, 2014)
Federico Fabbrini is Assistant Professor of European & Comparative Constitutional Law at Tilburg Law School in the Netherlands. In his new book, entitled…
New Books in LawStephen C. Neff’s Justice Among Nations: A History of International Law (Harvard UP, 2014)
Stephen C. Neff‘s Justice Among Nations: A History of International Law (Harvard UP, 2014) is a book of breathtaking scope, telling the story of the…
New Books in LawSean D. Murphy et al., “Litigating War: Mass Civil Injury and the Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission” (Oxford UP, 2013)
Professor Sean D. Murphy is the Patricia Roberts Harris Research Professor of Law at George Washington University and co-author of the book Litigating War…
New Books in LawAyesha Chaudhry, “Domestic Violence and the Islamic Tradition” (Oxford University Press, 2013)
How do people make sense of their scriptures when they do not align with the way they envision these texts? This problem is faced by many contemporary…
New Books in LawAndrew L. Russell, “Open Standards in the Digital Age” (Cambridge UP, 2014)
We tend to take for granted that much of the innovation in the technology that we use today, in particular the communication technology, is made possible…
New Books in LawArica L. Coleman, “That the Blood Stay Pure” (Indiana UP, 2014)
Arica Coleman did not start out to write a legal history of “the one-drop rule,” but as she began exploring the relationship between African American and…
New Books in LawOdette Lienau, “Rethinking Sovereign Debt” (Harvard UP, 2014)
In 1927 Russian-American legal theorist Alexander Sack introduced the doctrine of “odious debt.” Sack argued that a state’s debt is “odious” and should not be…
New Books in LawAhmad Atif Ahmad, “The Fatigue of the SharÄ«’a” (Palgrave, 2012)
In the book, The Fatigue of the SharÄ«’a (Palgrave, 2012), Ahmad Atif Ahmad explores a centuries-old debate about the permanence, or impermanence, of God’s…
New Books in LawSara Bannerman, “The Struggle for Canadian Copyright: Imperialism to Internationalism, 1842-1971”
In The Struggle for Canadian Copyright: Imperialism to Internationalism, 1842-1971, Sara Bannerman narrates the complex story of Canada’s copyright policy…
New Books in LawJoseph Carens, “The Ethics of Immigration” (Oxford UP, 2013)
It is commonly assumed that states have a right to broad discretionary control over immigration, and that they may decide almost in any way they choose, who…
New Books in LawPatrick Weil, “The Sovereign Citizen: Denaturalization and the Origins of the American Republic” (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013)
Patrick Weil is the author of The Sovereign Citizen: Denaturalization and the Origins of the American Republic (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013). He is…
New Books in LawJay Wexler, “The Odd Clauses: Understanding the Constitution Through Ten of Its Most Curious Provisions (Beacon, 2012)
Boston University School of Law Professor Jay Wexler offers readers an entertaining and enlightening tour through a “constitutional zoo” of ten…
New Books in LawSamuel Moyn, “The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History” (Harvard UP, 2010)
The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History (Harvard University Press 2010) takes the reader on a sweeping journey through the history of international law from…
New Books in LawAhmed El Shamsy, “The Canonization of Islamic Law: A Social and Intellectual History” (Cambridge UP, 2013)
In his brilliant new book, The Canonization of Islamic Law: A Social and Intellectual History (Cambridge UP, 2013), Ahmed El Shamsy, Assistant Professor of…
New Books in LawRumee Ahmed, “Narratives of Islamic Legal Theory” (Oxford UP, 2012)
How should one understand Islamic law outside of its application? What happens when we think about religious jurisprudence theoretically? For medieval Muslim…
New Books in LawSusan D. Carle, “Defining the Struggle: National Organizing for Racial Justice, 1880-1915” (Oxford UP, 2013)
Historians tell stories, and stories have beginnings and ends. Most human eras, however, are not so neat. Their beginnings and ends tend to blend into one…
New Books in LawDarryl E. Flaherty, “Public Law, Private Practice: Politics, Profit, and the Legal Profession in Nineteenth-Century Japan” (Harvard Asia Center, 2013)
In global narratives of modern legal history, Asia tends to fall short relative to Europe and the US. According to these narratives, while individuals in the…
New Books in LawAdam R. Shapiro, “Trying Biology: The Scopes Trial, Textbooks, and the Anti-Evolution Movement in American Schools” (University of Chicago Press, 2013)
During the 1924-25 school year, John Scopes was filling in for the regular biology teacher at Rhea County Central High School in Dayton, Tennessee. The final…
New Books in LawDavid Garland, “Peculiar Institution: America’s Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition” (Harvard UP, 2010)
Why is it that the United States continues to enforce the death penalty when the rest of the Western world abolished its use a little over three decades ago?…
New Books in LawMichael F. Armstrong, “They Wished they were Honest: The Knapp Commission and New York City Police Corruption” (Columbia Press, 2012)
Anyone who studies police corruption will be aware of the Knapp Commission that examined allegations of police corruption in New York City in the 1970s. Not…
New Books in LawThane Rosenbaum, “Payback: The Case for Revenge” (Chicago UP, 2013)
All humans have an emotionally-driven sense of fairness. We get treated unfairly and we get mad. It’s no wonder, then, that our laws–and those of almost…
New Books in LawSteven J. Harper, “The Lawyer Bubble: A Profession in Crisis” (Basic Books, 2013)
A friend of mine who had just graduated from law school said “Law school is great. The trouble is that when you are done you’re a lawyer.” Steven J. Harper…
New Books in LawJames Q. Whitman, “The Verdict of Battle: The Law of Victory and the Making of Modern War” (Harvard UP, 2012)
James Whitman wants to revise our understanding of warfare during the eighteenth century, the period described by my late colleague and friend Russell Weigley…
New Books in LawAndrew Koppelman, “The Tough Luck Constitution and the Assault on Health Care Reform” (Oxford UP, 2013)
Every hundred years or so, the Supreme Court decides a question with truly vast economic implications. In 2012 such a decision was handed down, in a case that…
New Books in LawLeila Schneps and Coralie Colmez, “Math on Trial” (Basic Books, 2013)
You may well have seen “Numb3rs,” a TV show in which mathematicians help solve crimes. It’s fiction. But, as Leila Schneps and Coralie Colmez show in their…
New Books in LawDaniel McCool, “The Most Fundamental Right: Contrasting Perspectives on the Voting Rights Act” (Indiana UP, 2012)
Daniel McCool, professor of political science at the University of Utah, is the editor of The Most Fundamental Right: Contrasting Perspectives on the Voting…
New Books in LawRichard Sander and Stuart Taylor, Jr., “Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It’s Intended to Help” (Basic Books, 2012)
In their book Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It’s Intended to Help, and Why Universities Won’t Admit It (Basic Books, 2012), Richard Sander…
New Books in LawPar Cassel, “Grounds of Judgment: Extraterritoriality and Imperial Power in Nineteenth-Century China and Japan” (Oxford UP, 2012)
Extraterritoriality was not grafted whole onto East Asian societies: it developed over time and in a relationship with local precedents, institutions, and…
New Books in LawBarry Kernfeld, “Pop Song Piracy: Disobedient Music Distribution Since 1929” (University of Chicago Press, 2011)
Have you ever illegally downloaded a song from the internet? How about illicitly burned copies of a CD? Made a “party tape?” Bought a bootleg album? You may…
New Books in LawDavid Ball and Don Keenan, “Reptile: The Manual of the Plaintiff’s Revolution” (Balloon Press, 2009)
“I am not smart. I invented smart to compel you to do what I want.” — The Reptile Any civil trial represents the culmination of many, many years of disciplined…
New Books in LawLynn Stout, “Cultivating Conscience: How Good Laws Make Good People” (Princeton UP, 2010)
Lynn Stout‘s pathbreaking book Cultivating Conscience:How Good Laws Make Good People (Princeton University Press, 2010) represents a much-needed update to the…
New Books in LawJames Unnever and Shaun L. Gabbidon, “A Theory of African American Offending: Race, Racism, and Crime” (Routledge, 2011)
Is comedian and cultural critic Bill Cosby right–that black youth suffer from a cultural pathology that leads them to commit more crimes than their white…
New Books in LawMartha Minow, “In Brown’s Wake: Legacies of America’s Educational Landmark” (Oxford UP, 2011)
What can judges do to change society? Fifty-seven years ago, the Supreme Court resolved to find out: the unanimous ruling they issued in Brown v. Board of…
New Books in LawRajshree Chandra, “Knowledge as Property, Issues in the Moral Grounding of Intellectual Property Rights” (Oxford UP, 2010)
Copyright is one of those topics over which even two saints disagreed. The legend has it that Saint Columba and Saint Finnian engaged in an argument as Columba…
New Books in LawKimbrew McLeod and Peter DiCola, “Creative License: The Law and Culture of Digital Sampling” (Duke University Press, 2011)
One hallmark of important art, in any medium, is a thoughtful relation with artistic precursors. Every artist reckons with heroes and rivals, influences and…
New Books in LawWalter Olson, “Schools for Misrule: Legal Academia and an Overlawyered America” (Encounter Books, 2011)
What kind of education are students at top American law schools getting? And how does that education influence their activities upon graduation? In Walter…
New Books in LawBrandon L. Garrett, “Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong” (Harvard UP, 2011)
Wrongful conviction is, both morally and practically, the worst mistake that society can inflict on an individual. From Franz Kafka to Errol Morris, from…
New Books in LawCharles Lane, “The Day Freedom Died: The Colfax Massacre, the Supreme Court, and the Betrayal of Reconstruction” (Henry Holt, 2008)
Why did Reconstruction fail? Why didn’t the post-war Federal government protect the civil rights of the newly freed slaves? And why did it take Washington…
New Books in LawNoah Feldman, “Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR’s Great Supreme Court Justices” (Twelve, 2010)
Franklin D. Roosevelt promised the country “bold, persistent experimentation” to address the Great Depression – but for quite a while his ideas were a little…
New Books in LawValerie Hebert, “Hitler’s Generals on Trial: The Last War Crimes Tribunal at Nuremberg” (University Press of Kansas, 2010)
Clausewitz famously said war was the “continuation of politics by other means.” Had he been unfortunate enough to witness the way the Wehrmacht fought on the…
New Books in LawYuma Totani, “The Tokyo War Crimes Trials: The Pursuit of Justice in the Wake of World War II” (Harvard UP, 2008)
Most everyone has heard of the Nuremberg Trials. Popular books have been written about them. Hollywood made movies about them. Some of us can even name a few…
New Books in LawLaura Wittern-Keller, “The Miracle Case: Film Censorship and the Supreme Court” (University of Kansas Press, 2008)
Did you ever wonder how we got from a moment in which almost everything on film could be censored (the Progressive Era) to the moment in which nothing on film…
New Books in LawLaura Wittern-Keller, “Freedom of the Screen: Legal Challenges to Film Censorship 1915-1981” (University of Kentucky Press, 2008)
This week we interviewed Laura Wittern-Keller about her new book, Freedom of the Screen: Legal Challenges to Film Censorship 1915-1981. Both well written and…