This book also presents insights into the men who wrote the Constitution, how it was created, and how the Supreme Court has interpreted the Constitution in the two centuries since its creation.

    This New York Times Notable Book of the Year, 1998, is now in trade paper.From the bestselling author of Eyes on the Prize, here is the definitive biography of the great lawyer and Supreme Court justice.

    Describing a case of trapped travellers who are forcd to cannibalize one of their team, it is used on courses in philosophy of law and Jurisprudence to show how their trial upon rescue touches on key concepts in philosophy and legal theory such as utilitarianism and naturalism. The Case of the Speluncean Explorers: Nine New opinions includes a reprint of Fuller's classic article and a much-needed revision of and addition to the five openings originally expressed in the case by the five Supreme Court Judges. Peter Suber carefully and clearly introduces students to the main themes of Fuller's article before introducing nine new opinions. These opinions include perspectives from communitarian, feminist, multicultural, postmodern and economic theories of law, updating Fuller's original case and bringing contemporary theories of law to bear on the five original opinions.Why read this book? One reason is to get beyond sloganeering about "judicial activism" and "activist judges." The book is an enjoyable and even-handed way to understand what the debate is about. It doesn't tell you what to think, but illustrates the contending positions and lets you think for yourself. It will show you how judges with different moral and political beliefs interpret written law, how they use precedents, how they conceive the proper role of judges, how they conceive the relationship between law and morality, and how they defend their judicial practices against criticism. It anchors all of this in a Supreme Court hearing of a gripping, concrete case on which real people disagree. (Challenge: Take any view of how judges should interpret law, especially any view that makes it sound easy, and try it out on this case. How well can it respect the facts and law? How well can it answer the objections from judges who take other views? How well does it deliver justice?) The book uses no jargon and assumes no prior knowledge of law or legal philosophy.

    This timely and provocative work comes to the startling conclusion: more guns mean less crime. In this paperback edition, Lott has expanded the research through 1996, incorporating new data available from states that passed right-to-carry and other gun laws since the book's publication as well as new city-level statistics.“Lott's pro-gun argument has to be examined on the merits, and its chief merit is lots of data…If you still disagree with Lott, at least you will know what will be required to rebut a case that looks pretty near bulletproof.”—Peter Coy, Business Week“By providing strong empirical evidence that yet another liberal policy is a cause of the very evil it purports to cure, he has permanently changed the terms of debate on gun control…Lott's book could hardly be more timely… A model of the meticulous application of economics and statistics to law and policy.”—John O. McGinnis, National Review“His empirical analysis sets a standard that will be difficult to match… This has got to be the most extensive empirical study of crime deterrence that has been done to date.”—Public Choice“For anyone with an open mind on either side of this subject this book will provide a thorough grounding. It is also likely to be the standard reference on the subject for years to come.”—Stan Liebowitz, Dallas Morning News“A compelling book with enough hard evidence that even politicians may have to stop and pay attention. More Guns, Less Crime is an exhaustive analysis of the effect of gun possession on crime rates.”—James Bovard, Wall Street Journal“John Lott documents how far ‘politically correct’ vested interests are willing to go to denigrate anyone who dares disagree with them. Lott has done us all a service by his thorough, thoughtful, scholarly approach to a highly controversial issue.”—Milton Friedman

    Constitution in this incisive new account of our most basic charter of liberty. Akhil Reed Amar brilliantly illuminates in rich detail not simply the text, structure, and history of individual clauses of the 1789 Bill, but their intended relationships to each other and to other constitutional provisions. Amar’s corrective does not end there, however, for as his powerful narrative proves, a later generation of antislavery activists profoundly changed the meaning of the Bill in the Reconstruction era. With the Fourteenth Amendment, Americans underwent a new birth of freedom that transformed the old Bill of Rights. We have as a result a complex historical document originally designed to protect the people against self-interested government and revised by the Fourteenth Amendment to guard minority against majority. In our continuing battles over freedom of religion and expression, arms bearing, privacy, states’ rights, and popular sovereignty, Amar concludes, we must hearken to both the Founding Fathers who created the Bill and their sons and daughters who reconstructed it. Amar’s landmark work invites citizens to a deeper understanding of their Bill of Rights and will set the basic terms of debate about it for modern lawyers, jurists, and historians for years to come.

    By the time he became our second president, no American had written more about our government and not even Jefferson or Madison had read as widely about questions of human nature, natural right, political organization, and constitutional construction. Yet this staunch constitutionalist is perceived by many as having become reactionary in his later years and his ideas have been largely disregarded.In the first major work on Adams's political thought in over thirty years, C. Bradley Thompson takes issue with the notion that Adams's thought is irrelevant to the development of American ideas. Focusing on Adams's major writings, Thompson elucidates and reevaluates his political and constitutional thought by interpreting it within the tradition of political philosophy stretching from Plato to Montesquieu.This major revisionist study shows that the distinction Adams drew between "principles of liberty" and "principles of political architecture" is central to his entire political philosophy. Thompson first chronicles Adams's conceptualization of moral and political liberty during his confrontation with American Loyalists and British imperial officers over the true nature of justice and the British Constitution, illuminating Adams's two most important pre-Revolutionary essays, "A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law" and "The Letters of Novanglus." He then presents Adams's debate with French philosophers over the best form of government and provides an extended analysis of his Defense of the Constitutions of Government and Discourses on Davila to demonstrate his theory of political architecture.From these pages emerges a new John Adams. In reexamining his political thought, Thompson reconstructs the contours and influences of Adams's mental universe, the ideas he challenged, the problems he considered central to constitution-making, and the methods of his reasoning. Skillfully blending history and political science, Thompson's work shows how the spirit of liberty animated Adams's life and reestablishes this forgotten Revolutionary as an independent and important thinker.

    

    Lou Cannon, veteran journalist, combines extensive research with interviews from hundreds of survivors, offering the only definitive story behind what happened and why.Official Negligence takes a hard look at the circumstances leading up to the riots. Cannon reveals how the videotape of the brutal beating of Rodney King had been sensationally edited by a local TV station, how political leaders required LAPD officers to carry metal batons despite evidence linking them to the rising toll of serious injury in the community, and how poorly prepared the city was for the violence that erupted.

    One of the few Afrikaners to join the resistance movement, considered a traitor by the apartheid regime, he sacrificed material success and eventually his life to do what he believed was right.

    

    These problems are dealt with by ensuring the liberty of the people to pursue their own ends, but addressing these problems also requires that liberty be structured by certain rights and procedures associated with the classical liberal conception of justice and the rule of law. Drawing upon insights from philosophy, economics, political theory, and law, Randy Barnett examines the serious social problems that are addressed by liberty--and the background or natural rights and rule of law procedures that distinguish liberty from license. He then outlines the constitutional framework that is needed to protect this structure of liberty. Athough this controversial new work is intended to challenge specialists, its clear and accessible prose ensure that it will be of immense value to both scholars and students working in a range of academic disciplines.

    Government police forces, prosecutors, courts, and prisons are all recent historical developments-results of a political and bureaucratic social experiment which, Bruce Benson argues, neither protects the innocent nor dispenses justice.In this comprehensive and timely book, Benson analyzes the accelerating trend toward privatization in the criminal justice system. In so doing, To Serve and Protect challenges and transcends both liberal and conservative policies that have supported government's pervasive role. With lucidity and rigor, he examines the gamut of private-sector input to criminal justice-from private-sector outsourcing of prisons and corrections, security, arbitration to full private justice such as business and community-imposed sanctions and citizen crime prevention. Searching for the most cost-effective methods of reducing crime and protecting civil liberties, Benson weighs the benefits and liabilities of various levels of privatization, offering correctives for the current gridlock that will make criminal justice truly accountable to the citizenry and will simultaneously result in reductions in the unchecked power of government.

    Martha Chamallas surveys the full range of legal issues affecting women, from rape and domestic violence to work-place discrimination and taxation issues. Her historical approach, which traces the evolution of legal feminism from the 1970s to the present, is especially valuable for today's generation of students. This revised edition explores new territory, with the latest cases and scholarly thinking on such topics as gender and athletics, the intersection of sex, race, and sexual orientation, and international human rights. One of the most enlightening books your students are likely to read.

    This book investigates the relationship between the law and religious ideology in Luther's Germany, showing how they developed in response to the momentum of Lutheran teachings and influence. John Witte, Jr. argues that it is not enough to understand the Reformation in either only theological or legal terms but that a perspective is required which takes proper account of both.

    With a foreword by the Dalai Lama and input from the prisoners themselves, this book illustrates Dr. Bedi's efforts to fundamentally change an entire prison system of criminality to one of humanity--Provided by publisher.

    John Finnis presents a richly-documented critical review of Aquinas's thought on morality, politics, law, and method in social science. Unique in his coverage of both primary and secondary texts and his vigorous argumentation on many themes, the author focuses on the philosophy in Aquinas's texts, and demonstrates how this interconnects with the theological elements. Finnis shows how Aquinas, despite some medieval limitations, makes clear and profound contributions to present debates.

    

    George Tucker’s View of the Constitution , published in 1803, was the first extended, systematic commentary on the United States Constitution after its ratification. Generations learned their Blackstone and their understanding of the Constitution through Tucker.Clyde N. Wilson is Professor of History and editor of The Papers of John C. Calhoun at the University of South Carolina.Please note: This title is available as an ebook for purchase on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and iTunes.

    Today, Hale is best known among contemporary legal academics and philosophers for his groundbreaking writings on coercion and consent in market relations. The bulk of his writing, however, consisted of a critique ofnatural property rights. Taken together, these writings on coercion and property rights offer one fo the most profound and elaborated critiques of libertarianism.

    Includes quick reference indexing, allowing you to quickly locate all topics in the recording, and informed exam tips to maximize your performance. Sections discuss: offer and acceptance, consideration, definition, sufficiency, adequacy, forbearance, past consideration, preexisting-duty rule, payment-in-full checks, promissory estoppel, statute of frauds, parole evidence rule, mistake, fraud, duress, undue influence, illegality, incapacity, unconscionability, impossibility, conditions and promises, anticipatory repudiation, third-party beneficiaries, assignment and delegation, and remedies.

    Harrowing in their frank detail and desperate tone, the selections in this anthology pack an emotional wallop...Should be required reading for anyone concerned about the violence in our society and the high rate of recidivism.--"Publishers Weekly." Includes work by: Jack London, Nelson Algren, Chester Himes, Jack Henry Abbott, Robert Lowell, Malcolm X, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and Piri Thomas.

    Board of Education in 1954 and the fight to implement it-and its implications for affirmative action and black poverty today.A black woman who moved in the corridors of power in the middle of this century, Constance Baker Motley has been a pioneer in both black civil rights and women's rights. As the key attorney assisting Thurgood Marshall at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, she argued a dozen cases before the Supreme Court (winning all but one), and her representation of James Meredith in his bid to enroll in the University of Mississippi made her famous. Subsequently, as Manhattan borough president and a U.S. district court judge, she has fulfilled the highest aspirations of our legal and political system.This book, the most detailed account to date of the legal conflicts of the civil rights movement, is also an account of Motley's struggle, as a black woman, to succeed, a record of a life lived with great courage and responsibility.

    Whereas the kindred science of fiqh is concerned with the articulation of actual rules of law, this science elaborates the theoretical and methodological foundations of the law.The Spirit of Islamic Law outlines the prominent features of Muslim juristic thought: espousal of divine sovereignty; a fixation on divine texts; an uncompromisingly intentionalist approach to the interpretation of those texts; a frank acknowledgment of the fallibility of human endeavor to capture divine intent; a toleration of legal diversity; a moralistic bent grounded in a particular social vision; and finally, a preoccupation with the affairs of private individuals--especially family relations and contracts--coupled with a concern to define the limits of governmental power.The Spirit of Islamic Law is the fifth book in Georgia's Spirit of Laws series, which illuminates the nature of legal systems throughout the world.

    It is particularly timely, then, that Richard Epstein, one of our country's most distinguished legal scholars, here sets out an authoritative set of principles that explains both the uses and the limits of government power. Blending his deep knowledge of classical political theory and legal history with modern economic thought, he considers a wealth of timely topics: the use of norms and customs in setting legal rules; the appropriate spheres for both private and common property for such diverse resources as water and telecommunications; the dark side of altruism in driving collective behavior; and the relative merits of public and private assistance to the poor. Drawing on the work of multiple disciplines, Principles for a Free Society offers a thoroughly realized blueprint to guide us through political conflict in the troubled times ahead.

    Yet as recently as twenty years ago many experts viewed the problem far less seriously, declaring that molestation was a very rare offense and that molesters were merely confused individuals unlikely to repeat their offenses. Over the past century, opinion has fluctuated between these radically different perspectives. This timely book traces shifting social responses to adult sexual contacts with children, whether this involves molestation by strangers or incestuous acts by family members. The book explores how and why concern about the sexual offender has fluctuated in North America since the late nineteenth century.Philip Jenkins argues that all concepts of sex offenders and offenses are subject to social, political, and ideological influences and that no particular view of offenders represents an unchanging objective reality. He examines the various groups (including mass media) who have been active in promoting particular constructions of the emerging problem, the impact of public attitudes on judicial and legislative responses to these crimes, and the ways in which demographic change, gender politics, and morality campaigns have shaped public opinion. While not minimizing sexual abuse of children, the book thus places reactions to the problem in a broad political and cultural context.

    Combining text with numerous case summaries, the student is provided with an up-to-date analysis of the key areas and key cases covered on undergraduate criminal law courses and with a concise exposition of recent academic commentary and current proposals for law reform.

    Important additions and revisions in the third edition include: Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist presiding over the impeachment trial of President William Clinton; How and why the presidential election of 2000 was decided in the Supreme Court; Supreme Court security in the wake of terrorists attacks; Expanded coverage of the First Amendment, privacy, equal protection, and federalism cases that have reached the Court; The Rehnquist Court Legacy. Entries range from short definitions to a series of thematic essays exploring landmark cases, justices of the Supreme Court, constitutional principles, legal topics, and other broad areas. Tables that provide historical detail, an extensive bibliography, useful research tools and tips, cross-references within articles, and a detailed index make The Supreme Court A to Z, Third Edition, the first resource your patrons reach for.

    His father, Yu Wan, was an eminent figure in educational circles both before and after the Second World War. In Part I of this book, there is a detailed description of the unique circumstances under which the author, as a matriculation student, was awarded a government scholarship to enter the University of Hong Kong in 1938. Altogether unpredictably this started a chain of events which landed him in two wartime jobs in China with British Naval Intelligence and the Chinese Nationalist Army respectively. After the war, he won a Victory Scholarship to further his education at Oxford and finally qualify as a barrister-at-law. He attributes his good fortune to being the seventh child of his father who was himself a seventh child. Hence the title of this book.Part II of this work consists of an accurate separate account of eight actual court cases handled by the author as Defence Counsel. These specially chosen and cleverly captioned cases all make fascinating reading, because each of them carries a distinct flavour of its own ranging from murder trials with an unexpected turn of events and a variety of fraud cases to an intriguing account of an attempt to set up an innocent traffic policeman which was only barely frustrated. The manner in which the defence in each case was conducted is of particular interest.

    It suggests the best ways by which readers can understand the different historical debates and schools of thought. It stresses the crucial point that the law did not simply react to external shocks, but was capable of developing from within, responding to the needs of a fast-changing and increasingly litigious society. Further, it questions the notion that royal justice underwent a crisis in the fourteenth century and offers new insights into the power structure and political culture of the reigns of Edward II, Edward III, and Richard II.

    With his Consort Queen Margaret, who was daughter of the King of jerusalem and Sicily, and their only 5011 Edward Prince of Wales, were obliged to quit the kingdom and at last, the King, being taken prisoner by his subjects, suffered a very long and terrible imprisonment. But the Queen, with her son, being thus banished, made her abode in the dutchy of Berry, which at that time belonged to her father, the King of Jerusalem.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

    In this collection, Sandel's liberal and feminist critics square off with his communitarian and civic republican sympathizers in a lively and wide-ranging discussion that spans constitutional law, culture, and political economy. Such practical, topical issues as immigration, gay marriage, federalism, adoption, abortion, corporate speech, militias, and economic disparity are debated alongside theories of civic virtue, citizenship, identity, and community. Not only does Debating Democracy's Discontent afford the most comprehensive and insightful critique to date of Sandel's volume, it also makes a significant, substantive contribution to contemporary political and legal philosophy in its own right. This book will prove essential to all who are interested in the future of American politics, law, and public philosophy.

    Fatal Freedom is an eloquent defense of every individual's right to choose a voluntary death. By maintaining statues that determine that voluntary death is not legal, Thomas Szasz believes that our society is forfeiting one of its basic freedoms and causing the psychiatric medical establishment to treat individuals in a manner that is disturbingly inhumane.

    Without a doubt judges were the most important prison reformers during this period. This book provides an account of this process, and uses it to explore the more general issue of the role of courts in the modern bureaucratic state. It provides detailed accounts of how the courts formulated and sought to implement their orders, and how this action affected the traditional conception of federalism, separation of powers, and the rule of law.

    It integrates a full account of the development of Chinese rights discourse with philosophical consideration of how various communities should respond to contemporary Chinese claims about the uniqueness of their human rights concepts. The book elaborates a plausible kind of moral pluralism and demonstrates that Chinese ideas of human rights do indeed have distinctive characteristics, but it nonetheless argues for the importance and promise of cross-cultural moral engagement.

    They are wrong, contends Richard Posner in this book. Posner characterizes the current preoccupation with moral and constitutional theory as the latest form of legal mystification--an evasion of the real need of American law, which is for a greater understanding of the social, economic, and political facts out of which great legal controversies arise. In pursuit of that understanding, Posner advocates a rebuilding of the law on the pragmatic basis of open-minded and systematic empirical inquiry and the rejection of cant and nostalgia--the true professionalism foreseen by Oliver Wendell Holmes a century ago. A bracing book that pulls no punches and leaves no pieties unpunctured or sacred cows unkicked, The Problematics of Moral and Legal Theory offers a sweeping tour of the current scene in legal studies--and a hopeful prospect for its future.

    In doing so the Court protected virtually all materials from laws that penalized dissemination. But simultaneously the Court also approved some government policies that made access to information more difficult, causing Justice Potter Stewart to observe that the "Constitution is neither a Freedom of Information Act nor an Official Secrets Act."The media that existed during the twenty-five years of explosive legal change was relatively stable. Most Americans who wished to learn about news and public affairs received quite similar information. Over the last twenty-five years, and especially the last decade, cable, social media, and the internet combined to transform the media. The law that developed to deal with the old media is the law that now applies to the new media. Yet the underlying assumptions of that law, especially that citizens rationally consider various sides of a debate, may no longer hold.Media Law: A Very Short Introduction provides a description of the development and status of the law relating to all media -- newspapers, magazines, books, broadcasting, the Internet -- in the United States and the United Kingdom. It deals with criticism of government, taxation, defamation, privacy, libel, access to people, data, and places, obscenity, blasphemy, and the various issues created by the Internet.

    It challenges traditional social structures, as international systems (such as the European Union, the WTO or the global capital markets) become more powerful than states and governments. This book recalls the traditional social structures to study and develop ways to meet the current urgent global challenges.

    The subject, affected by policy and political factors, can challenge even the more advanced student. In response, this title looks at both the law and the factors informing it, laying down the foundations of the subject. This contextualised approach also allows the student to develop the broadest possible perspective. Case law and legislation are set out and discussed, and the authors have built in a range of case studies to give a practical emphasis to the study. It is, however, the distinctive theoretical framework for administrative law that the authors develop that distinguishes this title from others and allows for real understanding of the subject. This updated edition will cement the title's seminal status.

    It provides explanations of the terminology, issues, organizations and laws surrounding this emotive subject. A Dictionary of Human Rights features: * over 200 clear and concise mini-essays* alphabetical arrangement for ease of useThis book is a vital source for anyone interested in or connected with human rights issues.

    It includes all the canons produced by the Church of England, from the opening of the Reformation parliamentin 1529 to 1947. Most of the material comes from the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, among which the canons of 1529, 1603 and 1640, and Cardinal Pole's legatine constitutions of 1556, are of particular importance. Butthe volume also includes the first scholarly editions of the deposited canons of 1874 and 1879 and the proposed canons of 1947. In addition, it includes both the Irish canons of 1634 and the Scottish canons of 1636. The canons areaccompanied by a substantial number of supplementary texts and appendixes, illustrating their sources and development; Latin texts are accompanied by parallel English translations, and the editor provides a full scholarly apparatus, which is particularly valuable for its identification of the sources of the various canons. The texts are preceded by an extended introduction, which provides not only an up-to-date analysis of the framing and significance ofeach set of canons, but also critical discussions of the origins and development of canon law and the system of ecclesiastical courts. It is an essential work of reference for anyone interested in the history of the Church of England since the Reformation, or in Anglican canon law. GERALD BRAYis Anglican Professor of Divinity at Beeson Divinity School, Samford University.

    The blackmarket-driven effects of prohibition, which include crime and its spiralling scourges as well as death and disease, are overall counterproductive. Ironically, the severe penalties intended to halt serious abuse intimidate the occasional user, but not the real target, whose desperate search for consolation in drugs is more result than cause of the misery of marginalization.

    This amendment was immediately challenged in the courts as a denial of equal protection of the laws under the United States Constitution. This litigation ultimately led to a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court invalidating the Colorado ballot initiative. Suzanne Goldberg, an attorney involved in the case from the beginning on behalf of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, and Lisa Keen, a journalist who covered the initiative campaign and litigation, tell the story of this case, providing an inside view of this complex and important litigation. Starting with the background of the initiative, the authors tell us about the debates over strategy, the court proceedings, and the impact of each stage of the litigation on the parties involved. The authors explore the meaning of legal protection for gay people and the arguments for and against the Colorado initiative. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in the development of civil rights protections for gay people and the evolution of what it means to be gay in contemporary American society and politics. In addition, it is a rich story well told, and will be of interest to the general reader and scholars working on issues of civil rights, majority-minority relations, and the meaning of equal rights in a democratic society.Suzanne Goldberg is an attorney with the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund. Lisa Keen is Senior Editor at the Washington Blade newspaper.

    In this thorough reinvestigation of Canadian legal history, Sidney L. Harring sets the record straight, showing how Canada has consistently denied Aboriginal peoples even the most basic civil rights.Drawing on scores of nineteenth-century legal cases, Harring reveals that colonial and early Canadian judges were largely ignorant of British policy concerning Indians and their lands. He also provides an account of the remarkable tenacity of First Nations in continuing their own legal traditions despite obstruction by the settler society that came to dominate them.The recognition of 'pre-existing Aboriginal rights' in the Constitutional Act of 1982 has shown that Aboriginal legal traditions have a definite place in contemporary Canadian law. This study clearly demonstrates that Canadian Native legal culture requires further study by scholars and more serious attention by courts in rendering decisions.

    As part of its historic, cathartic mission, the TRC held a special hearing, calling to account the lawyers - judges, academics and members of the bar - who had been crucial participants in the apartheid legal order. This book is an account of those hearings, and an attempt to evaluate, in the light of theories of adjudication, the historical role of the judiciary and bar in the apartheid years. Written by a well-known commentator on the South African legal system who became, by chance, the first witness to give testimony at these hearings, this book reveals, often in the words of those who testified, how the judges failed in their duty to uphold the rule of law. For the most part, the lawyers of apartheid deserted its victims. The few notable exceptions both illustrate the potential for lawyers to have done more and laid the basis for the respect the rule of law still enjoys in South Africa despite apartheid. Yet, as the author shows, many continue to commit a more serious crime. Failing to confront the past, and in many cases refusing even to attend TRC hearings, the lawyers who could have helped to resist the worst excesses of apartheid remain accomplices to its evil deeds. This book offers us the spectacle of and entire legal system on trial. The echoes from this process are captured here in a way which will appeal to all - readers, lawyers and non-lawyers alike - interested in the relationship between law and justice, as it is exposed during a period of transition to democracy. The themes dealt with here will also be of considerable interest to scholars, practitioners and judges interested in the debate about judicial independence, a debate which now rages throughout the common law world.

    In an attempt to understand the current malaise of American law and the depressed condition of American intellectual life in general, Pierre Schlag diagnoses what he believes is an epidemic of pathological reliance on the principle of reason. Contending that legal thinkers continually fail to recognize the aesthetic and ethical prejudices of rationalism, Schlag creates a genealogy that shows how the call to reason has become a manipulative vehicle of power, faith, and prejudice. In examining the fierce resistance to questioning reason’s primacy, this renowned critic and professor of American law demonstrates how those who use and study the law perpetuate their own methodological blind spots. Claiming that reason has been endowed with a virtually mystical power to organize social life, Schlag unravels the seemingly rational world of judicial opinions, statutes, doctrines, and legal principles. In the process, he paints a shocking—and sure to be controversial—picture of the chaos and, indeed, violence of the American legal tradition.This bold commentary on the irrationality of reason in American law and legal studies will interest not only legal scholars and philosophers but also serious thinkers across a broad disciplinary spectrum.