Featured Acquisitions

Featured Acquisitions - May 2005


		Too Late to Die Young: Nearly True Tales From a Life by Harriet McBryde Johnson New York : Henry Holt and Co., 2005 HV3013.J65 A3 2005 Basement Harriet McBryde Johnson isn't sure, but she thinks one of her earliest memories was learning that she will die. The message came from a maudlin TV commercial for the Muscular Dystrophy Association that featured a boy who looked a lot like her. Then as now, Johnson tended to draw her own conclusions. In secret, she carried the knowledge of her mortality with her and tried to sort out what it meant. By the time she realized she wasn't a dying child, she was living a grown-up life, intensely engaged with people, politics, work, struggle, and community. Due to a congenital neuromuscular disease, Johnson has never been able to walk, dress, or bathe without assistance. With help, however, she manages to take on the world. From the streets of Havana, where she covers an international disability rights conference, to the floor of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, to an auditorium at Princeton, where she defends her right to live against philosopher Peter Singer, she lives a life on her own terms. And along the way, she defies and debunks every popular assumption about disability. This unconventional memoir opens with a lyrical meditation on death and ends with a surprising sermon on pleasure. In between, we get the tales Johnson most enjoys telling from her own life. This is not a book "about disability" but it will surprise anyone who has ever imagined that life with a severe disability is inherently worse than another kind of life.
		Digital Crossroads: American Telecommunications Policy in the Internet Age by Jonathan E. Nuechterlein and Philip J. Weiser Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, c2005 HE7781 .N84 2005 Basement Telecommunications policy profoundly affects the economy and our everyday lives. Yet accounts of important telecommunications issues tend to be either superficial (and inaccurate) or mired in jargon and technical esoterica. In Digital Crossroads, Jonathan Nuechterlein and Philip Weiser offer a clear, balanced, and accessible analysis of competition policy issues in the telecommunications industry. After giving a big picture overview of the field, they present sharply reasoned analyses of the major technological, economic, and legal developments confronting communications policymakers in the twenty-first century. Since the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, when Congress fundamentally reoriented the existing regulatory scheme, no book has cogently explained the intricacies of telecommunications competition policy in the Internet age for general readers, students, and practitioners alike. Digital Crossroads meets this need, focusing on the regulatory dimensions of competition in wireline and wireless telephone service; competition among rival platforms for broadband Internet service and video distribution; and the Internet's transformation of every aspect of the telecommunications industry, particularly through the emergence of "voice over Internet protocol" (VoIP). The authors explain not just the complicated legal issues governing the industry, but also the rapidly changing technological and economic context in which these issues arise. The book includes extensive endnotes and tables that cover relevant court decisions, FCC orders, and academic commentaries; a glossary of acronyms; a statutory addendum containing the most important provisions of federal telecommunications law; and two appendixes with information on more specialized topics.
		Ecology and Environmental Ethics: Green Wood in the Bundle of Sticks by Robert Jay Goldstein Aldershot, Hants, England ; Burlington, VT : Ashgate, c2004 KF3775 .G654 2004 Balcony Examining the successes and failures of three decades of environmental law, this absorbing book reconsiders some of the policies devised to remedy centuries of abuse of the planet. It acknowledges the advances made using technological standards to effect pollution control as well as rudimentary systems that regulate use of land at the local level. However, as the author observes, these systems have limitations in solving vexing problems such as sprawl and non-point source pollution, as the cost of their use can easily outweigh the benefits. He suggests a system, termed 'Green Wood in the Bundle of Sticks', that provides the necessary theoretical and historical bases to bridge the gap between the potentials of each system. Using objective criteria based on science, this system is tied to a land ownership system that also takes into account societal concerns at a broader level.
		Adoption Politics: Bastard Nation and Ballot Initiative 58 by E. Wayne Carp Lawrence, Kan. : University Press of Kansas, c2004 HV875.56.O7 O37 2004 Basement The passage of Measure 58 in Oregon in 1998 was a milestone in adoption reform. For the first time in U.S. history a grassroots initiative restored the legal right of adopted adults to request and receive their original birth certificates. Within a day after the law went into effect, nearly 2,400 adoptees had applied for these previously sealed records, elevating their right to know over a birth mother’s right to privacy. E. Wayne Carp, a nationally respected authority on adoption history, now reveals the efforts of the radical adoptee rights organization Bastard Nation to pass this milestone initiative. He has written an intimate history of a passionately proposed and opposed initiative that has the potential to revolutionize the adoption reform movement nationwide. Carp follows the campaign from its inception through the hard-fought signature drives of proponents Helen Hill and Shea Grimm to the electoral campaign and ensuing court battles. The opposition was formidable: government officials, adoption agencies, news media, the ACLU, religious organizations, and ad-hoc citizen political groups. Using correspondence and his own candid interviews with all the key players, Carp shows how both sides mobilized their constituencies and formed their strategies. In describing challenges to Measure 58’s constitutionality, Carp reveals legal arguments that were never publicized by the Oregon media and remained unknown to the American public until now--issues centering on privacy rights that are crucial to understanding both sides of the controversy and the hazards of initiative politics. As Carp shows, Measure 58 was important because it framed the issue of adoption reform in terms of civil rights and equal protection of the law rather than in terms of psychological needs or medical necessity. The resulting law now gives adult adoptees access to birth certificates but it also allows birth mothers to indicate whether or not they wish to be contacted. Carp not only chronicles a milestone initiative and a model piece of legislation for other states to emulate, he also proposes a sensible way to cut the Gordian Knot that bedevils adoption reform today.
		Law and Governance in Postnational Europe: Compliance beyond the Nation-State edited by Michael Zurn and Christian Joerges Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2005 KJC5057 .L39 2005 Annex 3rd This book argues that Europeanization and globalization have led to ever-more intensive legalization at transnational level. What accounts for compliance beyond the nation-state? The authors tackle this question by comparing compliance with regulations that have been formulated in a very similar way at different levels of governance. They test compliance with rules at the national level, at the regional level (EU), and at a global level (WTO), finding that in fact the EU has higher levels of compliance than both international and national rules. The authors argue that this is because the EU has a higher level of legalization, combined with effective monitoring mechanisms and sanctions. In this respect it seems that the European Union has indeed achieved a high level of legalization and compliance, though the authors add that this achievement does not settle the related queries with the legitimacy of transnational governance and law.
		The Cyanide Canary by Joseph Hilldorfer and Robert Dugoni New York : Free Press, c2004 HV6404.I2 H55 2004 Basement The Cyanide Canary is the riveting true story of a horrific crime -- of a brave young man left for dead, an unscrupulous business mogul, and the relentless EPA investigator who fought to overcome injustice. On a crisp summer morning in Soda Springs, Idaho, twenty-year-old Scott Dominguez kissed his fiancée goodbye and went to work for Allan Elias, the owner of Evergreen Resources, an enterprise Dominguez thought was in the business of producing fertilizer from mining waste. A former high school wrestler blessed with Tom Cruise-like good looks, Dominguez seemed to have unlimited potential, but by eleven o'clock that morning he was fighting for his life, pulled unconscious from a cyanide-laced storage tank and not expected to live through the night. In Seattle, Special Agent Joseph Hilldorfer of the Environmental Protection Agency was given the job of finding out what happened to Dominguez and why. Initially Hilldorfer did not want the case, still frustrated by an intense two-year investigation that concluded with corporate polluters walking out of a federal courthouse free. But as he learned more, Hilldorfer, the son of a Pittsburgh cop with a blue-collar work ethic, was touched by Scott's suffering and outraged at Elias's callous disregard for his employees' well-being. Hilldorfer and his partner, Special Agent Bob Wojnicz, joined forces with seasoned Boise Assistant U.S. Attorney George Breitsameter and an indefatigable, brilliant young attorney from the Department of Justice's Environmental Crimes Section named David Uhlmann. Together they would uncover the horrifying truths and build the criminal case against Elias. A former New York whiz kid and Arizona realestate and business mogul, Elias owned businesses that had polluted Idaho with hazardous waste for nearly a decade. Yet Elias never spent a single day in jail, openly boasted of beating the environmental quality regulations, and avoided any significant fines. Would this case be any different? Hilldorfer, Uhlmann, and the government trial team embarked on an epic courtroom battle that would stretch them to the limits. What began as a struggle for justice for one young man became a fight by the EPA for its very ability to enforce the nation's environmental laws and to bring environmental polluters to justice. In the balance was whether Allan Elias would ever spend a day in jail. Gripping, powerful, and compulsively readable, The Cyanide Canary is a major achievement in the classic tradition of A Civil Action, a book that unfolds like fiction yet is alarmingly true.
		United States Hegemony and the Foundations of International Law edited by Michael Byers and Georg Nolte Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2003 KZ1242 .U55 2003 Basement Successive hegemonic powers have shaped the foundations of international law. This book examines whether the current predominance of the United States is leading to foundational change in the international legal system. A range of leading scholars in international law and international relations consider six foundational areas that could be undergoing change, including international community, sovereign equality, the law governing the use of force, and compliance. The authors demonstrate that the effects of US predominance on the foundations of international law are real, but also intensely complex. This complexity is due, in part, to a multitude of actors exercising influential roles. And it is also due to the continued vitality and remaining functionality of the international legal system itself. This system limits the influence of individual states, while stretching and bending in response to the changing geopolitics of our time.
		American Gulag: Inside U.S. Immigration Prisons by Mark Dow Berkeley : University of California Press, c2004 JV6483 .D69 2004 Basement Before September 11, 2001, few Americans had heard of immigration detention, but in fact a secret and repressive prison system run by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service has existed in this country for more than two decades. In American Gulag, prisoners, jailers, and whistle-blowing federal officials come forward to describe the frightening reality inside these INS facilities. Journalist Mark Dow's on-the-ground reporting brings to light documented cases of illegal beatings and psychological torment, prolonged detention, racism, and inhumane conditions. Intelligent, impassioned, and unlike anything that has been written on the topic, this gripping work of investigative journalism should be read by all Americans. It is a book that will change the way we see our country. American Gulag takes us inside prisons such as the Krome North Service Processing Center in Miami, the Corrections Corporation of America's Houston Processing Center, and county jails around the country that profit from contracts to hold INS prisoners. It contains disturbing in-depth profiles of detainees, including Emmy Kutesa, a defector from the Ugandan army who was tortured and then escaped to the United States, where he was imprisoned in Queens, and then undertook a hunger strike in protest. To provide a framework for understanding stories like these, Dow gives a brief history of immigration laws and practices in the United States--including the repercussions of September 11 and present-day policies. His book reveals that current immigration detentions are best understood not as a well-intentioned response to terrorism but rather as part of the larger context of INS secrecy and excessive authority. American Gulag exposes the full story of a cruel prison system that is operating today with an astonishing lack of accountability.
		Law and Education in Medieval Islam: Studies in Memory of George Makdisi edited by Joseph E. Lowry, Devin J. Stewart and Shawkat M. Toorawa [Cambridge, U.K.] : Gibb Memorial Trust, c2004 KBP55 .L39 2004 Basement This volume, focusing on legal education and its place in classical and medieval Islamic civilisation, comprises eight articles written in honour of Professor George Makdisi (1925-2002), seven of them by his former students at the University of Pennsylvania (William Granara, Sherman Jackson, Gary Leiser, Joseph Lowry, Christopher Melchert, Devin Stewart, and Shawkat Toorawa). One article is by George Makdisi's friend and Islamicist colleague Bernard Weiss, and the Preface by George Makdisi's friend and colleague at the University of Pennsylvania, the European medievalist Edward Peters. George Makdisi was one of the great scholars of Islamic law, theology and education, as well as a historian of Islam's institutions and practices of learning. He taught at the University of Michigan from 1953-59, at Harvard University from 1959-73, and at the University of Pennsylvania from 1973 until his retirement in 1990. In 1993 he received the Giorgio Della Vida Award for Excellence in Islamic Studies.
		From Widgets to Digits: Employment Regulation for the Changing Workplace by Katherine V.W. Stone Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2004 HD6971 .S865 2004 Basement From Widgits to Digits is about the changing nature of the employment relationship and its implications for labor and employment law. For most of the twentieth century, employers fostered long-term employment relationships through the use of implicit promises of job security, well-defined hierarchical job ladders, and longevity-based wage and benefit schemes. Today’s employers no longer value longevity or seek to encourage long-term attachment between the employee and the firm. Instead employers seek flexibility in their employment relationships. As a result, employees now operate as free agents in a boundaryless workplace, in which they move across departmental lines within firms, and across firm borders, throughout their working lives. Today’s challenge is to find a means to provide workers with continuity in wages, on-going training opportunities, sustainable and transferable skills, unambiguous ownership of their human capital, portable benefits, and an infrastructure of support structures to enable them to weather career transitions.
		Electing Justice: Fixing the Supreme Court Nomination Process by Richard Davis Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2005 KF8742 .D383 2005 Balcony The nomination and confirmation of Supreme Court justices has, in recent years, become a battleground like no other. Bruising Senate confirmation hearings for failed nominee Robert Bork and successful nominee Clarence Thomas left the reputation of all branches of government in disarray and the participants--and the nation--exhausted. Even uncontroversial nominations such as those of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer have faced a protracted process. The Senate's Constitutional prerogative to provide advice and consent to the President's nominations to the highest court in the land has given rise to political grandstanding and ideological battles. Less well known is how other players--interest groups, the news media, and, through their involvement, the general public--also affect the conduct and outcome of the Supreme Court nomination process. In Electing Justice Richard Davis reveals how from the late 1960s on, the role of these other players grew in intensity to the point that the nomination process would be unrecognizable to its original devisers, the Framers of the Constitution. The path to the Supreme Court now includes live television coverage of Senate hearings, "murder boards" in preparation for those hearings, a flood of press releases, television and radio advertisements, and public opinion polls. Unlike earlier, more elite-governed processes, the involvement of outside groups has become highly public and their impact is now widely accepted. The general public too has become involved as through the public campaigns waged by outside groups voters increasingly follow Supreme Court nominations and hold opinions about confirmation. How should we respond to this informal democratization of the selection process? The genie, Davis contends, cannot be put back into the bottle and we cannot return to a non-political, elite-driven ideal. Davis concludes with several controversial recommendations that preserve the public role while avoiding the excesses of past nominations. By embracing the public's participation in the examination of nominees we can ensure a democratic process and secure an independent and accountable judicial branch.
		Which Rights Should be Universal? by William J. Talbott Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2005 JC571 .T1445 2005 Basement "We hold these truths to be self-evident..." So begins the U.S. Declaration of Independence. What follows those words is a ringing endorsement of universal rights, but it is far from self-evident. Why did the authors claim that it was? William Talbott suggests that they were trapped by a presupposition of Enlightenment philosophy: That there was only one way to rationally justify universal truths, by proving them from self-evident premises. With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that the authors of the U.S. Declaration had no infallible source of moral truth. For example, many of the authors of the Declaration of Independence endorsed slavery. The wrongness of slavery was not self-evident; it was a moral discovery. In this book, William Talbott builds on the work of John Rawls, Jurgen Habermas, J.S. Mill, Amartya Sen, and Henry Shue to explain how, over the course of history, human beings have learned how to adopt a distinctively moral point of view from which it is possible to make universal, though not infallible, judgments of right and wrong. He explains how this distinctively moral point of view has led to the discovery of the moral importance of nine basic rights. Undoubtedly, the most controversial issue raised by the claim of universal rights is the issue of moral relativism. How can the advocate of universal rights avoid being a moral imperialist? In this book, Talbott shows how to defend basic individual rights from a universal moral point of view that is neither imperialistic nor relativistic. Talbott avoids moral imperialism by insisting that all of us, himself included, have moral blindspots and that we usually depend on others to help us to identify those blindspots. Talbott's book speaks to not only debates on human rights but to broader issues of moral and cultural relativism, and will interest a broad range of readers.