Book Reviews Category
Criminal Injustice
Jan. 11, 2022—Edward Rubin | 75 Vand. L. Rev. En Banc 1 (2022) | Reviewed: JED S. RAKOFF, WHY THE INNOCENT PLEAD GUILTY AND THE GUILTY GO FREE: AND OTHER PARADOXES OF OUR BROKEN LEGAL SYSTEM, Farrar, Strauss & Giroux 2021. Pp. 208. $27.00 Hardcover. As its title suggests, Why the Innocent Plead Guilty and the Guilty...
In Defense of Excellence
Jan. 29, 2020—Jasper L. Tran | 73 Vand. L. Rev. En Banc 71 | Reviewed: Anthony T. Kronman, THE ASSAULT ON AMERICAN EXCELLENCE, Free Press 2019. Pp. 272. $27.00 Hardcover. “Up until recently, excellence had been an educational ideal. At the founding of the Catholic University of Ireland in 1852, John Henry Newman envisioned a university as a...
Going Private: Climate Action by Businesses and Individuals
May. 9, 2018—Going-Private Reviewed: Michael P. Vandenbergh and Jonathan M. Gilligan, BEYOND POLITICS: THE PRIVATE GOVERNANCE RESPONSE TO CLIMATE CHANGE. Cambridge University Press 2017. AUTHOR Daniel A. Farber Sho Sato Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley.
Shining a Light on Shadow Money
Apr. 22, 2016—Shining a Light on Shadow Money Reviewed: MORGAN RICKS, THE MONEY PROBLEM: RETHINKING FINANCIAL REGULATION (University of Chicago Press, 2014). AUTHOR Associate Professor of Law, University of California, Hastings College of the Law. I am grateful to Abe Cable and Reuel Schiller for helpful comments on drafts of this review.
Common and Uncommon Families and the American Constitutional Order
Feb. 13, 2014—In STATES OF UNION: FAMILY AND CHANGE IN THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL ORDER (University Press of Kansas, 2013) Professor Mark Brandon challenges some common understandings about the intersection of law and family in the United States. This Book Review examines Brandon’s historical work in the broader context of current debates about which family forms should be sanctioned...
Justice for All?
Sep. 24, 2012—In REPRESENTING JUSTICE: INVENTION, CONTROVERSY, AND RIGHTS IN CITY-STATES AND DEMOCRATIC COURTROOMS (Yale University Press, 2011) by Judith Resnik and Dennis Curtis, art takes center stage as Resnik and Curtis focus on the visual renderings of the law, rather than on the words that make up the law, to analyze the pursuit and practice of justice...
American Legal History Revisited
Sep. 13, 2012—This book review by Professor James W. Ely, Jr., considers G. Edward White’s LAW IN AMERICAN HISTORY, VOLUME 1: FROM THE COLONIAL YEARS THROUGH THE CIVIL WAR (Oxford University Press, 2012) and discusses the contributions of this work to the wide array of existing American legal histories. PDF Download Link: American Legal History Revisited AUTHOR: James W....
Social Movements, Legal Change, and the Challenges of Writing Legal History
Aug. 1, 2012—Reviewed: COURAGE TO DISSENT: ATLANTA AND THE LONG HISTORY OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT (Oxford University Press, 2011). This Essay by Professor Christopher W. Schmidt identifies the key contributions that Tomiko-Brown Nagin’s Courage to Dissent makes to the legal history of the civil rights movement. It situates the book among several other prominent legal histories...
Go White, Young Man
Jan. 30, 2012—Sharfstein’s THE INVISIBLE LINE: THREE AMERICAN FAMILIES AND THE SECRET JOURNEY FROM BLACK TO WHITE (Penguin Press, 2011) follows three families whose members at some point crossed the color line separating black from white—or tried and failed to. These case studies tell us what it is to be American—how race is central to our identity, how...