Featured Acquisitions - Alexander Campbell King Law Library

Featured Acquisitions - May 2008


		Freedom of the Screen: Legal Challenges to State Film Censorship, 1915-1981 by Laura Wittern-Keller Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky, c2008 PN1995.62 .W58 2008 Basement Between 1907 and 1980, many state and local governments empowered motion picture censor boards with the legal authority to keep any movie they considered obscene, indecent, or harmful from being shown. Although the mainstream American film industry accepted the form of censorship known as "prior restraint," independent distributors and exhibitors challenged the government censors in court. In Freedom of the Screen, Laura Wittern-Keller tells the story of those who fought prior restraint on movies. By drawing attention to this inequity--film was the only medium so constricted by the 1950s--the distributors pushed a reluctant judiciary to square its interpretation of movie expression with the rights of other media. As these legal interpretations gradually became more sympathetic to artistic freedom--largely because of the independent distributors' lawsuits--Hollywood was free to discard its outmoded restraints and deliver provocative, relevant movies to American audiences.
		The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement: The Battle for Control of the Law by Steven M. Teles Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, c2008 KF385 .T45 2008 Balcony Unlike accounts that depict the conservatives as fiendishly skilled, The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement reveals the formidable challenges that conservatives faced in competing with legal liberalism. Steven Teles explores how conservative mobilization was shaped by the legal profession, the legacy of the liberal movement, and the difficulties in matching strategic opportunities with effective organizational responses. He explains how foundations and groups promoting conservative ideas built a network designed to dislodge legal liberalism from American elite institutions. And he portrays the reality, not of a grand strategy masterfully pursued, but of individuals and political entrepreneurs learning from trial and error. Using previously unavailable materials from the Olin Foundation, Federalist Society, Center for Individual Rights, Institute for Justice, and Law and Economics Center, The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement provides an unprecedented look at the inner life of the conservative movement. Lawyers, historians, sociologists, political scientists, and activists seeking to learn from the conservative experience in the law will find it compelling reading.
		Breastfeeding Rights in the United States by Karen M. Kedrowski and Michael E. Lipscomb Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers, c2008 RJ216 .K397 2008 Basement Breastfeeding Rights in the United States shows that the right to breastfeed in this country exists only in a negative sense: you can do it unless someone takes you to court. Kedrowski and Lipscomb catalog and analyze all the laws, policies, judicial opinions, cultural mores, and public attitudes that bear on breastfeeding in America. They then explore the classic double bind: social norms promulgated by the medical and public health establishment say "breast is best;" but social practices in the workplace and in public spaces make breastfeeding difficult. Aggravating the double bind is the prominence of the breast in American culture as a sexual object. The double bind creates coercively structured choices that are incompatible with the meaningful exercise of rights.
		Liberty's Blueprint: How Madison and Hamilton Wrote The Federalist Papers, Defined the Constitution, and Made Democracy Safe for the World by Michael I. Meyerson New York: Basic Books, c2008 KF4520 .M50 2008 Balcony Aside from the Constitution itself, there is no more important document in American politics and law than The Federalist-the series of essays written by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison to explain the proposed Constitution to the American people and persuade them to ratify it. Today, amid angry debate over what the Constitution means and what the framers’ “original intent” was, The Federalist is more important than ever, offering the best insight into how the framers thought about the most troubling issues of American government and how the various clauses of the Constitution were meant to be understood. Michael Meyerson’s Liberty’s Blueprint provides a fascinating window into the fleeting, and ultimately doomed, friendship between Hamilton and Madison, as well as a much-needed introduction to understanding how the lessons of The Federalist are relevant for resolving contemporary constitutional issues from medical marijuana to the war on terrorism. This book shows that, when properly read, The Federalist is not a “conservative” manifesto but a document that rightfully belongs to all Americans across the political spectrum.
		Medical Malpractice by Frank A. Sloan and Lindsey M. Chepke Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, c2008 KF2905.3 .S58 2008 Balcony In Medical Malpractice, economist Frank Sloan and lawyer Lindsey Chepke examine the U.S. medical malpractice process from legal, medical, economic, and insurance perspectives, analyze past efforts at reform, and offer realistic, achievable policy recommendations. They review the considerable empirical evidence in a balanced fashion and assess objectively what works in the current system and what does not. Medical Malpractice is the most comprehensive treatment of malpractice available, integrating findings from several different areas of research and describing them accessibly in nontechnical language. It will be an essential reference for anyone interested in medical malpractice.
		Confronting Global Terrorism and American Neo-Conservatism: The Framework of a Liberal Grand Strategy by Tom Farer Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2008 K5256 .F37 2008 Balcony This book brings together and subjects to critical scrutiny the core controversies connected to the so-called "War on Terror": When is it legitimate and prudent to use force? Is torture ever justified? Do we need to suspend human rights in order to fight terrorism? Is multi-culturalism the answer to communal conflict? Is Israel's treatment of the Palestinians illegal and immoral, an accelerator of terrorism, or legitimately defensive and largely irrelevant to the terrorism problem? Are terrorists responding to concrete US policies or do they simply hate and wish to destroy Western societies? Liberal intellectuals and political leaders have been slow to articulate a grand strategy informed by liberal values for confronting these issues surrounding global terrorism. Confronting Global Terrorism and American Neo-Conservatism outlines the framework of a liberal strategy and exposes the costs of the neo-conservative alternative that has driven US foreign policy since 9/11.
		Bleached Faith: The Tragic Cost When Religion Is Forced into the Public Square by Steven Goldberg Stanford, Calif.: Stanford Law Books, c2008 KF4783 .G65 2008 Balcony Bleached Faith persuasively argues that victory is worse than defeat when people of faith seek to force religion into the public square. The Ten Commandments lose their meaning. Frosty the Snowman has to stand guard when the creche is displayed. And intelligent design reduces God to a second-rate engineer. The freedom of religion we enjoy in the United. Stales, both, as a matter of law and practice, is extraordinary by any measure. But in recent years, the effort by some to challenge the long-held separation of church and state by imposing religion in the public sphere has caused more harm than good. Steven Goldberg firmly maintains that, "if American. religion becomes a watered-down broth that is indistinguishable from consumerism and science, we will have no one to blame but ourselves." Americans on both sides of church-state issues will enjoy Goldberg's vigorous argument: In modern America, the gravest threat to real faith comes from those who would water down religion in order to win the dubious honor of forcing it into public buildings and classrooms.
		How Judges Think by Richard A. Posner Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2008 K2300 .P67 2008 Balcony Posner is unique in the world of American jurisprudence, a highly regarded U.S. appellate judge and a prolific and controversial writer on legal philosophy (The Little Book of Plagiarism). Opinionated, sarcastic and argumentative as ever, Posner is happy to weigh in not only on how judges think, but how he thinks they should think. When sticking to explaining the nine intellectual approaches to judging that he identifies, and to the gap between legal academics and judges, and his well-formulated pragmatic approach to judging, Posner is insightful, accessible, often funny and a model of clarity. When he charges off into longstanding arguments with fellow legal theorists (liberal commentator Ronald Dworkin, for one) or examines doctrinal discrepancies in the opinions of Supreme Court justices, he writes for a far more limited audience. For the record, although Justice Scalia is a favorite target, none of the Supreme Court nine escapes Posner's lethally sharp pen. Posner's two major points—that to a great extent judges make decisions based not on theory but on who they are, their gender, education, class and experiences, and that the Supreme Court is a political court regardless of what theory of constitutional interpretation justices claim—are well worthwhile and deeply rooted in common sense and experience.
		Creating the National Security State: A History of the Law that Transformed America by Douglas T. Stuart Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, c2008 UA23 .S88 2008 Basement For the last sixty years, American foreign and defense policymaking has been dominated by a network of institutions created by one piece of legislation - the 1947 National Security Act. This is the definitive study of the intense political and bureaucratic struggles that surrounded the passage and initial implementation of the law. Focusing on the critical years from 1937 to 1960, Douglas Stuart shows how disputes over the lessons of Pearl Harbor and World War II informed the debates that culminated in the legislation, and how the new national security agencies were subsequently transformed by battles over missions, budgets, and influence during the early cold war.
		The Race Card: How Bluffing about Bias Makes Race Relations Worse by Richard Thompson Ford New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008 E185.86 .F65 2008 Basement What do Katrina victims waiting for federal disaster relief, millionaire rappers buying vintage champagne, Ivy League professors waiting for taxis, and ghetto hustlers trying to find steady work have in common? All have claimed to be victims of racism. These days almost no one openly expresses racist beliefs or defends bigoted motives. So lots of people are victims of bigotry, but no one's a bigot? What gives? Either a lot of people are lying about their true beliefs and motivations, or a lot of people are jumping to unwarranted conclusions - or just playing the race card. As the label of "prejudice" is applied to more and more situations, the word loses a clear and agreed-upon meaning. This makes it easy for self-serving individuals and political hacks to use accusations of racism, sexism, homophobia, and other types of "bias" to advance their own ends. Richard Thompson Ford, a Stanford Law School professor, brings legal analysis, lively anecdotes, and plain old common sense to this heated topic. He offers ways to separate valid claims from bellyaching. The Race Card is a call for us to treat racism as a social problem that must be objectively understood and honestly evaluated.
		Access to Justice as a Human Right edited by Francesco Francioni Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2007 K133 .A33 2007 Balcony In international law, as in any other legal system, respect and protection of human rights can be guaranteed only by the availability of effective judicial remedies. When a right is violated or damage is caused, access to justice is of fundamental importance for the injured individual and it is an essential component of the rule of law. Yet, access to justice as a human right remains problematic in international law. First, because individual access to international justice remains exceptional and based on specific treaty arrangements, rather than on general principles of international law; second, because even when such right is guaranteed as a matter of treaty obligation, other norms or doctrines of international law may effectively impede its exercise, as in the case of sovereign immunity or non-reviewability of UN Security Council measures directly affecting individuals. Further, even access to domestic legal remedies is suffering because of the constraints put by security threats, such as terrorism, on the full protection of freedom and human rights. This collection of essays offers seven distinct perspectives on the present status of access to justice: its development in customary international law, the stress put on it in times of emergency, its problematic exercise in the case of violations of the law of war, its application to torture victims, its development in the case law of the UN Human Rights Committee and of the European Court of Human Rights, its application to the emerging field of environmental justice, and finally access to justice as part of fundamental rights in European law.
		Inheritance in Contemporary America: The Social Dimensions of Giving across Generations by Jacqueline L. Angel Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008 HB715 .A55 2008 Basement Inheritance in Contemporary America tackles the complex legal, policy, and emotional issues that surround bequests and inheritances in an era of increasing longevity, broadening ethnicity, and unraveling social safety nets. Through empirical analyses, case studies, interviews, and anecdotes, Jacqueline L. Angel explains the historical nature of familial giving and how it is changing as the nation's demographics shift. She explores the legal, personal, and policy complexities involved in passing wealth down through generations and provides a cross-disciplinary context for exploring the indelible effects that newly unfolding inheritance practices will have on various societal cohorts and the nation in general. From nuclear and extended families to the state and non-governmental bodies, Angel's study explores how attitudes toward giving are evolving and confronts in stark terms the legacy that these shifts in attitude will leave. This book will be a vital tool for scholars and practitioners in gerontology, sociology, psychology, anthropology, economics, political science, and public policy.
		The Bush-Cheney Administration's Assault on Open Government by Bruce P. Montgomery Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2008 KF5753 .M655 2008 Balcony The Bush-Cheney administration took office in 2001 determined to assert the preeminent authority of the executive branch and its immunity from congressional oversight and public transparency. Within months, Congress's "Use of Force" resolution on the heels of the 9/11 terrorist attacks gave the White House the platform for launching an aggressive and successful campaign to gut the nation's open government laws, neuter congressional prerogatives, and shroud the presidency in privilege and secrecy. With military precision, the wartime executive targeted and struck down or flouted all the landmark sunshine laws enacted by Congress over the preceding decades. Montgomery, who founded the world's largest academic repository of contemporary human rights documents, concludes with a summary of the aggregate impact of Bush-Cheney's attacks on open and balanced government and their implications for the future of constitutional and human rights in the United States.
		Complex Justice: The Case of Missouri v. Jenkins by Joshua M. Dunn Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, c2008 KF4155 .D86 2008 Balcony In this book, Joshua Dunn explores the history of Missouri v. Jenkins and explains that the initial ruling was not the result of tyrannical "judicial activism," but was instead the logical outcome of previous contradictory Supreme Court doctrines. High Court decisions, Dunn says, necessarily limit the policy choices available to lower court judges, introducing difficulties the Supreme Court never anticipated. He demonstrates that the Kansas City case is a model lesson for the types of problems that develop for lower courts in any area in which the Supreme Court attempts to create significant change. Dunn's exploration of this landmark case deepens our understanding of when courts can and cannot successfully create and manage public policy.
		Truth or Economics: On the Definition, Prediction, and Relevance of Economic Efficiency by Richard S. Markovits New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, c2008 HD87 .M2753 2008 Basement Is economic efficiency a sound basis upon which to make public policy or legal decisions? In this sophisticated analysis, Richard S. Markovits considers the way in which scholars and public decision-makers define, predict, and assess the moral and legal relevance of economic efficiency. The author begins by identifying imperfections in the traditional definition of economic efficiency. He then develops and illustrates an appropriate response to Second-Best Theory and investigates the moral and legal relevance of economic-efficiency analyses. Not only do virtually all economic, legal, and public policy thinkers misdefine economic efficiency, the author concludes, they also ignore or respond inadequately to Second-Best Theory when analyzing the economic efficiency of public choices and misassess the relevance of economic-efficiency conclusions both for moral evaluations and for the answer to legal-rights questions that is correct as a matter of law.
		Freedom of Religion, the First Amendment, and the Supreme Court: How the Court Flunked History by Barry Adamson Gretna, LA: Pelican Pub. Co., 2008 KF4783 .A934 2008 Balcony In colonial America, everyone knew the meaning of the terms “establishment” and “established church”: an official, monopolistic governmental religion. The colonists also well knew the various negative attributes associated with the “established church,” especially compelled financial support and attendance. Every colonial state, except Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, had an established church at one time. Before the revolution, some states had disestablished their churches. Those who had suffered most, especially the Baptists of Virginia, demanded protection in the form of a Bill of Rights. Virginia refused to ratify the constitution unless this amendment was added, and it became the First Amendment, stating, “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, nor prohibit the free exercise thereof. ” In his book, Adamson explains in detail how the Court flunked history and got it wrong, how they seized on a phrase not even in the constitution, and have gradually built freedom of religion into a restraint of religious liberty. The Bill of Rights was a guarantee of freedom to the citizen. The court is busy building restraints to that freedom.