Featured Acquisitions - Alexander Campbell King Law Library

Featured Acquisitions - November 2007

See also: Recent Acquisitions in Selected Subject Areas


		There When We Needed Him : Wiley Austin Branton, Civil Rights Warrior by Judith Kilpatrick Fayetteville : University of Arkansas Press, 2007 KF373.B68 K55 2007 Balcony Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall said of Wiley Austin Branton that he "devoted his entire life to fighting for his own people." There When We Needed Him is the story of that fight, which began with Branton's being one of the first black students at the University of Arkansas School of Law and took him to the highest levels of business and government.
		Merrill Lynch : The Cost Could Be Fatal: My War Against Wall Street's Giant by Keith Schooley Enid, Okla. : Lakepointe Pub., c2002 HG4572 .S326 2002 Basement When financial consultant Keith Schooley took a job with one of the largest, most respected securities firms on Wall Street, he had high hopes for a successful career. He was proud to work for a company of such high integrity as Merrill Lynch. It didn't take long, however, for Schooley to realize Merrill Lynch's well-cultivated reputation was not based on what went on behind the facade. Merrill Lynch: The Cost Could Be Fatal--My War Against Wall Street's Giant is Schooley's detailed account of the disturbing incidents that eventually led him to a courtroom battle with the behemoth firm.
		Moving Mountains : How One Woman and Her Community Won Justice from Big Coal by Penny Loeb Lexington : University Press of Kentucky, c2007 KF228.B733 L64 2007 Balcony Deep in the heart of the southern West Virginia coalfields, one of the most important environmental and social empowerment battles in the nation has been waged for the past decade. Fought by a heroic woman struggling to save her tiny community through a landmark lawsuit, this battle, which led all the way to the halls of Congress, has implications for environmentally conscious people across the world. The story begins with Patricia Bragg in the tiny community of Pie. When a deep mine drained her neighbors' wells, Bragg heeded her grandmother's admonition to "fight for what you believe in" and led the battle to save their drinking water. Though she and her friends quickly convinced state mining officials to force the coal company to provide new wells, Bragg's fight had only just begun. Soon large-scale mining began on the mountains behind her beloved hollow. Fearing what the blasting off of mountaintops would do to the humble homes below, she joined a lawsuit being pursued by attorney Joe Lovett, the first case he had ever handled. In the case against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Bragg v. Robertson), federal judge Charles Haden II shocked the coal industry by granting victory to Joe Lovett and Patricia Bragg and temporarily halting the practice of mountaintop removal." "While Lovett battled in court, Bragg sought other ways to protect the resources and safety of coalfield communities, all the while recognizing that coal mining was the lifeblood of her community, even of her own family (her husband is a disabled miner). The years of Bragg v. Robertson bitterly divided the coalfields and left many bewildered by the legal wrangling. One of the state's largest mines shut down because of the case, leaving hardworking miners out of work, at least temporarily. Despite hurtful words from members of her church, Patricia Bragg battled on, making the two-hour trek to the legislature in Charleston, over and over, to ask for better controls on mine blasting. There Bragg and her friends won support from delegate Arley Johnson, himself a survivor of one of the coalfield's greatest disasters. Award-winning investigative journalist Penny Loeb spent nine years following the twists and turns of this story, giving voice both to citizens, like Patricia Bragg, and to those in the coal industry. Intertwined with court and statehouse battles is Patricia Bragg's own quiet triumph of graduating from college summa cum laude in her late thirties and moving her family out of welfare and into prosperity and freedom from mining interests.
		The Nine : Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin New York : Doubleday, c2007 KF8748 .T66 2007 Balcony Based on exclusive interviews with the justices themselves, The Nine tells the story of the Court through personalities - from Anthony Kennedy's overwhelming sense of self-importance to Clarence Thomas's well-tended grievances against his critics to David Souter's odd nineteenth-century lifestyle. There is also, for the first time, the full behind-the-scenes story of Bush v. Gore - and Sandra Day O'Connor's fateful breach with George W. Bush, the president she helped place in office.
		Republic.com 2.0 by Cass R. Sunstein Princeton, N. J. : Princeton University Press, c2007 HM851 .S872 2007 Basement What happens to democracy and free speech if people use the Internet to create echo chambers - to listen and speak only to the like-minded? In Republic.com 2.0, Sunstein rethinks the critical relationship between democracy and the Internet in a world where partisan Web logs have emerged as significant forces in politics and where cyber-jihadists have embraced the Internet to thwart democracy and spread violence. Cass Sunstein demonstrates that the real question is how to avoid "information cocoons" and to ensure that the unrestricted choices made possible by technology do not undermine democracy. Sunstein also proposes new remedies and reforms - focusing far less on what government should do, and much more on what consumers and producers should do - to help democracy avoid the perils, and realize the promise, of the Internet.
		See You in Court : How the Right Made America a Lawsuit Nation by Thomas Geoghegan New York : The New Press : Distributed by W.W. Norton & Co., c2007 KF384 .G46 2007 Balcony This book turns on its head the conventional thinking about why Americans sue, addressing a range of new, related themes, including why the best and the brightest generally no longer go into the executive branch, how contract law has given way to tort, and why the author himself no longer brings "coupon" class-action suits.
		Law Lit : From Atticus Finch to The Practice a Collection of Great Writing About the Law edited by Thane Rosenbaum New York : New Press, c2007 PN6071.L33 L39 2007 Basement With dozens of selections from writers as diverse as Leo Tolstoy, Sophocles, and Mark Twain, this anthology of writings is a dazzling collection that offers an enlightening look at the legal system and its practitioners.
		Out of Range : Why the Constitution Can't End the Battle over Guns by Mark V. Tushnet Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2007 KF3941 .T88 2007 Balcony Few constitutional disputes maintain as powerful a grip on the public mind as the battle over the Second Amendment. The National Rifle Association and gun-control groups struggle unceasingly over a piece of the political landscape that no candidate for the presidency - and few for Congress - can afford to ignore. But who's right? Will it ever be possible to settle the argument? In Out of Range, one of the nation's leading legal scholars takes a calm, objective look at this flitter debate. Mark V. Tushner brings to this book a deep expertise in the Constitution, the Supreme Court, and the role of the law in American life. He breaks down the different positions on the Second Amendment, showing that it is a mistake to stereotype them. Tushnet's exploration is honest and nuanced; he finds the constitutional arguments finely balanced, which is one reason the debate has raged for so long. Along the way, he examines various experiments in public policy, from both sides, and finds little-clear evidence for the practical effectiveness of any approach to gun safety and prosecution. Of course, he notes, most advocates of the right to keep and bear arms agree that it should be subject to reasonable regulation. Ultimately, Tushnet argues, our view of the Second Amendment reflects our sense of ourselves as a people. The answer to the debate will not be found in any holy writ, but in our values and our vision of the nation.
		The Next Justice: Repairing the Supreme Court Appointments Process by Christopher L. Eisgruber Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, c2007 KF8742 .E357 2007 Balcony The Supreme Court appointments process is broken, and the timing couldn't be worse - for liberals or conservatives. The Court is just one more solid conservative justice away from an ideological sea change - a hard-right turn on an array of issues that affect every American, from abortion to environmental protection. But neither those who look at this prospect with pleasure nor those who view it with horror will be able to make informed judgments about the next nominee to the Court - unless the appointments process is fixed now. In The Next Justice, Christopher Eisgruber proposes a way to do just that. He describes a new and better manner of deliberating about who should serve on the Court - an approach that puts the burden on nominees to show that their judicial philosophies and politics are acceptable to senators and citizens alike. And he makes a new case for the virtue of judicial moderates. Long on partisan rancor and short on serious discussion, today's appointments process reveals little about what kind of judge a nominee might make. Eisgruber argues that the solution is to investigate how nominees would answer a basic question about the Court's role: When and why is it beneficial for judges to trump the decisions of elected officials? Through an examination of the politics and history of the Court, Eisgruber demonstrates that pursuing this question would reveal far more about nominees than do other tactics, such as investigating their views of specific precedents or the framers' intentions.
		Human Rights and the WTO : The Case of Patents and Access to Medicines byHolger Hestermeyer Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2007 K3240 .H475 2007 Balcony This book discusses both patent law and international human rights law in great depth, distinguishing between obligations under different human rights instruments and including a highly readable introduction into both areas of law. It then explains the concept of conflict between legal regimes and why patent law and human rights law are in conflict.
		Party of the First Part by Adam Freedman New York : Henry Holt and Co., 2007 K184 .F74 2007 Balcony In this discourse, Adam Freedman demystifies legal language, from its beguiling oxymorons (attractive nuisance) to its cautious redundancies (null and void). The Party of the First Part explores the origins of legalese, defines obscure terms, and sheds some much-needed light on the Non-Intercourse Act and other bizarre laws.
		Silence and Freedom by Louis Michael Seidman Stanford, Calif. : Stanford Law and Politics, 2007 KF9625 .S45 2007 Balcony This book argues that silence can be an expression of freedom. This link between silence and freedom is apparent in a variety of contexts, which the author examines individually, including silence and apology, silence and self-incrimination, silence and interrogation, silence and torture, and silence and death.
		Off the Record : The Press, the Government, and the War over Anonymous Sources by Norman Pearlstiner New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007 KF8959.P7 P43 2007 Balcony Confidentiality has become a weapon in the White House's war on the press, a war fought with the unwitting complicity of the press itself. In this hard-hitting inside story, Norman Pearlstine takes us behind the scenes of one of the most controversial courtroom dramas of our time, and shows that the conflict between reporters and their sources is of great consequence for the press - and for the country as a whole.
		Blood and Soil : Genocidal Violence in World History by Ben Kiernan New Haven : Yale University Press, c2007 HV6322.7 .K54 2007 Basement Kiernan examines outbreaks of mass violence from the classical era to the present, focusing on worldwide colonial exterminations and 20th-century case studies including the Armenian genocide, the Nazi Holocaust, Stalins mass murders, and the Cambodian and Rwandan genocides.
		Sacco & Vanzetti: The Men, the Murders, and the Judgment of Mankind by Bruce Watson New York : Viking, c2007 KF224.S2 W38 2007 Balcony When the state of Massachusetts electrocuted Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti on August 23, 1927, it concluded one of the most controversial legal cases in American history. In the eight decades since, debate has raged about the fate of the Italian immigrants said to have been railroaded for the murders of two payroll clerks. Were they innocent? Guilty? Was one guilty and the other innocent? Was justice served, or was justice "crucified"? In this first full-length narrative of the case in thirty years, Bruce Watson unwinds a tale that opens with anarchist bombs going off in a posh Washington, D.C., neighborhood and concludes with worldwide outrage over the fates of these two men. The true story of one of the nation's most infamous trials and executions, Sacco and Vanzetti mines deep archives and new sources, unveiling fresh details and fleshing out the two men as naive dreamers and militant revolutionaries. It is the most complete history of a case that still haunts the American imagination.
		Free Movement, Social Security and Gender in the EU by Vicki Paskalia Oxford ; Portland, Or. : Hart, 2007 KJE3387 .P37 2007 Annex 3 This work examines the system of co-ordination of national social security laws in the European Union from a gender perspective. The central question that it raises concerns the level of social security protection enjoyed by women moving throughout the Union in cases of work interruption or marriage dissolution. How successful has the European system of co-ordination, the aim of which is to provide a sufficient level of protection to migrant workers and their families, been in addressing these challenges? The book contains a comprehensive discussion of the phenomenon and legal institution of social security, as well as a thorough analysis of the current state of European Community law concerning co-ordination, with a particular focus on gender. It identifies several problematic areas where solutions must be worked out and action taken. The book fills a gap in the legal literature in the social security field and will appeal to those with an interest in social security, including academics, policy-makers and practitioners.
		The Threat of Force in International Law by Nikolas Stürchler Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2007 KZ6374 .S78 2007 Sohn Library Threats of force are a common feature of international politics, advocated by some as an economical guarantee against the outbreak of war and condemned by others as a recipe for war. Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter forbids states to use threats of force, yet the meaning of the prohibition is unclear. This book provides the first comprehensive appraisal of the no-threat principle: its origin, underlying rationale, theoretical implications, relevant jurisprudence and how it has withstood the test of time from 1945 to the present. Based on a systematic evaluation of state and United Nations practices, the book identifies what constitutes a threat of force and when its use is justified under the United Nations Charter. In so doing, it relates the no-threat principle to important concepts of the twentieth century, such as deterrence escalation, crisis management and what has been aptly described as the 'diplomacy of violence'.
		Marked : Race, Crime, and Finding Work in an ERA of Mass Incarceration by Devah Pager Chicago : University of Chicago Press, c2007 HV9288 .P23 2007 Basement The product of a field experiment, Marked gives us a glimpse into the daunting barriers facing ex-offenders in the job market. Devah Pager matched up pairs of young men, randomly assigned them criminal records, then sent them on hundreds of real job searches throughout the city of Milwaukee. Her applicants were attractive, articulate, and capable - yet ex-offenders received less than half the callbacks of equally qualified applicants without criminal backgrounds.
		Philosophy of International Law by Anthony Carty Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press, c2007 KZ1255 .C37 2007 Basement This book offers an internal critique of the discipline of international law whilst showing the necessary place for philosophy within this subject area. By reintroducing philosophy into the heart of the study of international law, Anthony Carty explains how traditionally philosophy has always been an integral part of the discipline. However, this has been driven out by legal positivism, which has, in turn, become a pure technique of law. He explores the extent of the disintegration and confusion in the discipline and offers various ways of renewing philosophical practice.