What does it mean to talk about law as theater, to speak about the "e;performance"e; of transactions as mundane as the sale of a pig or as agonizing as receiving compensation for a dead kinsman?
On the night of April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln in what he envisioned part of a scheme to plunge the federal government into chaos and gain a reprieve for the struggling Confederacy.
Challenging traditional accounts of the development of American private law, Peter Karsten offers an important new perspective on the making of the rules of common law and equity in nineteenth-century courts.
Henry Ford is remembered in American lore as the ultimate entrepreneur-the man who invented assembly-line manufacturing and made automobiles affordable.
Addressing the relationship between law and the visual, this book examines the importance of photography in Central, East, and Southeast European show trials.
Explaining the curious legal doctrine of "e;coverture,"e; William Blackstone famously declared that "e;by marriage, husband and wife are one person at law.
In the first modern biography of Lord Mansfield (1705-1793), Norman Poser details the turbulent political life of eighteenth-century Britain's most powerful judge, serving as chief justice for an unprecedented thirty-two years.
In the first modern biography of Lord Mansfield (1705-1793), Norman Poser details the turbulent political life of eighteenth-century Britain's most powerful judge, serving as chief justice for an unprecedented thirty-two years.
Arthur Ray's extensive knowledge in the history of the fur trade and Native economic history brought him into the courts as an expert witness in the mid-1980s.
Arthur Ray's extensive knowledge in the history of the fur trade and Native economic history brought him into the courts as an expert witness in the mid-1980s.
The problem of prosecuting individuals complicit in the Nazi regime's "e;Final Solution"e; is almost insurmountably complex and has produced ever less satisfying results as time has passed.
In this gracefully written, accessible and entertaining volume, John Semonche surveys censorship for reasons of sex from the nineteenth century up to the present.
In this gracefully written, accessible and entertaining volume, John Semonche surveys censorship for reasons of sex from the nineteenth century up to the present.
Adherents of originalism often present it as a theory that constrains legal decision-making in a clear and objective manner that is based on the text and original meaning of the Constitution, in contrast to the supposedly subjective and activist jurisprudence of those who promote a living Constitution.
For more than century before World War II, traders, merchants, financiers, and laborers steadily moved between places on the Indian Ocean, trading goods, supplying credit, and seeking work.
The military trial of William Calley for his role in the slaughter of five hundred or more Vietnamese civilians at My Lai shocked a nation already sharply divided over a controversial war.
Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction, FinalistWhile car-crash victim Sharon Kowalski lay comatose in the hospital, battle lines were drawn between her parents and her lesbian companion Karen Thompson, initiating a nearly decade-long struggle over the guardianship of Kowalski.
Langum Prize, Honorable MentionAmericans value privacy as one of their most cherished rights, yet the word "e;privacy"e; isn't even mentioned in the U.
According to the US Constitution, if a bill is not returned to Congress by the president within ten days of receiving it and Congress has adjourned, the bill is effectively vetoed.
Adherents of originalism often present it as a theory that constrains legal decision-making in a clear and objective manner that is based on the text and original meaning of the Constitution, in contrast to the supposedly subjective and activist jurisprudence of those who promote a living Constitution.
Few episodes in the modern civil rights movement were more galvanizing or more memorialized than the brutal murders of Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaneyidealists eager to protect and promote the rights of black Americans, even in the deep and very dangerous South.
The military trial of William Calley for his role in the slaughter of five hundred or more Vietnamese civilians at My Lai shocked a nation already sharply divided over a controversial war.
Twice denied admission to a California medical school despite better grades and test scores than successful minority applicants, Allan Bakke took his grievance to court and set off a major controversy over affirmative action.
Among the last CIA agents airlifted from Saigon in the waning moments of the Vietnam War, Frank Snepp returned to headquarters determined to secure help for the Vietnamese left behind by an Agency eager to cut its losses.
In this sweeping and revealing insider study, Seth Stern and Stephen Wermiel shine a bright light on the life, career, and thought of William Brennan (1906-1997), widely considered the Supreme Courts most influential twentieth-century justice, as well as its greatest liberal and preeminent strategist.
Langum Prize, Honorable MentionWhen Supreme Court Justice Tom Clark resigned his seat on the bench at the youthful age of 67 after 18 years, his decision was unique in the annals of Court history: he was leaving so that his son Ramsey, just nominated as Attorney General, could assume the job Clark himself had once held without conflict of interest.
Until President Gerald Ford pardoned former president Richard Nixon for the Watergate scandal, most members of the public probably paid little attention to the presidents use of the clemency power.
In the American imagination the West denotes a borderbetween civilization and wilderness, past and future, native and newcomerand its lawlessness is legendary.
