Best Legal Theory & Systems

Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence? Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions—with no end in sight. Based on fifteen years of original research Acemoglu and Robinson marshall extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America, England, Europe, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, including: Are we moving from a virtuous circle in which efforts by elites to aggrandize power are resisted to a vicious one that enriches and empowers a small minority? “For economics and political-science students, surely, but also for the general reader who will appreciate how gracefully the authors wear their erudition.” — Kirkus Reviews “Provocative stuff; backed by lots of brain power.” — Library Journal “This is an intellectually rich book that develops an important thesis with verve. large and ambitious new book.” — The Daily “ Why Nations Fail is a splendid piece of scholarship and a showcase of economic rigor.” —The Wall Street Journal "Ranging from imperial Rome to modern Botswana, this book will change the way people think about the wealth and poverty of nations...as ambitious as Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel ." A wonderfully readable mix of history, political science, and economics, this book will change the way we think about economic development. "Some time ago a little-known Scottish philosopher wrote a book on what makes nations succeed and what makes them fail. The Wealth of Nations is still being read today. “This fascinating and readable book centers on the complex joint evolution of political and economic institutions, in good directions and bad. Acemoglu and Robinson provide an enormous range of historical examples to show how such shifts can tilt toward favorable institutions, progressive innovation and economic success or toward repressive institutions and eventual decay or stagnation. Written with a deep knowledge of economics and political history, this is perhaps the most powerful statement made to date that ‘institutions matter.’ A provocative, instructive, yet thoroughly enthralling book.” —Joel Mokyr, Robert H. Strotz Professor of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Economics and History, Northwestern University. “This important and insightful book, packed with historical examples, makes the case that inclusive political institutions in support of inclusive economic institutions is key to sustained prosperity. This is important analysis not to be missed.” —Peter Diamond, Nobel Laureate in Economics “Acemoglu and Robinson have made an important contribution to the debate as to why similar-looking nations differ so greatly in their economic and political development. The openness of a society, its willingness to permit creative destruction, and the rule of appear to be decisive for economic development.” —Kenneth Arrow, Professor Emeritus, Stanford University, Nobel Laureate in Economics, 1972 “Acemoglu and Robinson—two of the world's leading experts on development—reveal why it is not geography, disease, or culture which explains why some nations are rich and some poor, but rather a matter of institutions and politics. “Some time ago a little known Scottish philosopher wrote a book on what makes nations succeed and what makes them fail. The Wealth of Nations is still being read today. Two centuries from now our great-great-…-great grandchildren will be, similarly, reading Why Nations Fail .” —George Akerlof, Nobel Laureate in Economics, 2001 “In this stunningly wide ranging book Acemoglu and Robinson ask a simple but vital question, why do some nations become rich and others remain poor? This book is a must read at a moment where governments right across the western world must come up with the political will to deal with a debt crisis of unusual proportions.” —Steve Pincus, Bradford Durfee Professor of History and International and Area Studies, Yale University “The authors convincingly show that countries escape poverty only when they have appropriate economic institutions, especially private property and competition. More originally, they argue countries are more likely to develop the right institutions when they have an open pluralistic political system with competition for political office, a widespread electorate, and openness to new political leaders. This intimate connection between political and economic institutions is the heart of their major contribution, and has resulted in a study of great vitality on one of the crucial questions in economics and political economy.” — Gary S. Becker, Nobel Laureate in Economics, 1992 “This not only a fascinating and interesting book: it is a really important one. The highly original research that Professors Acemoglu and Robinson have done, and continue to do, on how economic forces, politics and policy choices evolve together and constrain each other, and how institutions affect that evolution, is essential to understanding the successes and failures of societies and nations.

helps you learn new material by working through chapters that explain each topic in simple language challenges your understanding with hypotheticals similar to those presented in class provides valuable opportunity to study for the final by reviewing the hypotheticals as well as the structure and reasoning behind the corresponding analysis quickly gets to the point in conversational style laced with humor remains a favorite among law school students is often recommended by professors who encourage the use of study guides works with ALL the major casebooks, suits any class on a given topic provides an alternative perspective to help you understand your casebook and in-class lectures.

(leftists stage muggings; instead of fighting by Marquis of Queensberry rules, conservatives need to accept the strategy Mike Tyson: “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”). Immediately frame the debate.

Through oral histories, personal interviews, eyewitness accounts, congressional testimony, and recently declassified FBI files, War Against All Puerto Ricans tells the story of a forgotten revolution and its context in Puerto Rico's history, from the US invasion in 1898 to the modern-day struggle for self-determination. "In searing and well-researched prose, former New York assemblyman and El Diario editorial director Denis covers a much-neglected side of U.S. imperialist and colonial practice in Puerto Rico...The historical account he adeptly weaves unabashedly reveals the government's racist and often predatory actions toward its Caribbean colony...This timely, eye-opening title is as much a must-read as Juan Gonzalez's Harvest of Empire ." "[Nelson Denis] provides scathing insights into Washington's response to Albizu Campos's nationalist party and its violent revolution in 1950 that still has broad implications...his perspective of largely overlooked history could not be more timely." —New York Times " War Against All Puerto Ricans was published...to supply the world with the hard truths about the small island's history. Like many other colonized places, specific details about Puerto Rico are swept under rugs and when revealed, they are watered down, whitewashed or, worse, omitted. “A patient, calibrated, fully-researched study of the mendacious, hypocritical way the United States treats its Caribbean colony, castrating its leadership, bombarding its villages, experimenting biologically with its population. "The response inspired by War Against All Puerto Ricans is visceral: rage, guilt, despair, fear...an indictment of ongoing American policy. If this electoral season (for president, in the US; for governor, on the island) is to offer anything more than a contest of popular appeal and private funding, this book must play a role—this is a history of which all candidates should be informed and a present question to which they all must respond." “As more than a half century of failed US policy toward Cuba comes to a slow end, Nelson Denis's fascinating new book is a timely reminder of that other island in the Caribbean that the United States took possession of in 1898: Puerto Rico. "In War Against All Puerto Ricans , Nelson Denis uncovers one of the darkest parts of America's domestic and foreign policy. Denis provides a more detailed account, thanks to exclusive interviews conducted over a span of decades, as well as thousands of public records, including recently de-classified FBI documents." Here we have a full-throated eulogy of brave heroes, men and women of conviction, who devoted every drop of their blood to a people and a principle...Denis packs 258 pages (plus another 71 pages of notes) with detailed accounts of government corruption, police abuse, Wall Street greed, scientific experimentation, politicking, graft, racism, wholesale slaughter, surveillance, assassinations, eugenics, propaganda, espionage, forgery and falsification — all within the span of half a century, and on an island no bigger than Connecticut." “A meticulous and riveting account of the decades-long clash between the Puerto Rican independence movement, led by Pedro Albizu Campos, and the commonwealth's U.S.-appointed stewards, national police force, the FBI and, ultimately, the U.S. Army" —Ray Monell, New York Daily News.

In fact, such judicial discretion might lead to the destruction of the Bill of Rights if a majority of the judges ever wished to reach that most undesirable of goals. This essay is followed by four commentaries by Professors Gordon Wood, Laurence Tribe, Mary Ann Glendon, and Ronald Dworkin, who engage Justice Scalia's ideas about judicial interpretation from varying standpoints. Supreme Court Justice Scalia posits his views of how statutes and the Constitution should be interpreted; a noted historian and three distinguished legal scholars respond. Ronald Dworkin, of New York University Law School, finds textualism inadequate for constitutional analysis because ``key constitutional provisions, as a matter of their original meaning, set out abstract principles rather than concrete or dated rules.''.

A myth exists that Jews can embrace the cultural components of Judaism without appreciating the legal aspects of the Jewish tradition. A cultural analysis paradigm provides a useful way of understanding the Jewish tradition as the product of both legal precepts and cultural elements. "The Myth of the Cultural Jew will change the way in which lay people, academics, and Jewish clergy and professionals think about the development of Jewish law. It is the first book to apply to Jewish law the method of cultural analysis used in secular legal studies. "The Legal Theory Bookworm recommends The Myth of the Cultural Jew: Culture and Law in Jewish Tradition by Roberta Rosenthal Kwall" -Professor Lawrence Solum, Legal Theory Bookworm, Legal Theory Blog. Still, Kwall marshals a great deal of evidence to support her first argument [that Jewish culture produces Jewish law]." "Roberta Rosenthal Kwall not only provides a unique framework for gaining a deeper understanding of [the issue of Jewish continuity] ... but also for gaining a deeper understanding of the evolution of halacha (Jewish law). "This informative book ...is a meticulously researched study of how halakhah (Jewish law) and culture are interactional forces both shaping each other. The Myth of the Cultural Jew is a beautifully written book that will interest all readers who want to better understand Jewish religious and cultural practices." "The sheer breadth and depth of Jewish law and culture that Kwall comfortably explores as she supports her points are reason enough to read this book. Guiding us through centuries of Jewish legal development, she shows how generation after generation of Jewish sages, scholars, and commentators have been affected by the cultures in which they lived, incorporating ideas and values from non-Jewish cultures. "This fascinating book offers, among other things, detailed documentation of the extent to which conceptions of Jewish law and tradition have always been influenced by the broader cultures in which Jews have lived-not just in the modern Reform and Conservative movements, but also in traditionalist and Orthodox communities." "Kwall succeeds in writing an accessible while complex book that establishes her thesis through numerous historical examples from the fluid interplay of Jewish culture, the non-Jewish environments in which it was forged, and Jewish law and legal tradition. First and foremost, Professor Kwall's work adds richness to the reader's knowledge and understanding of Judaism and Jewish law(halakhah), even to those readers who are Jewish." "Kwall's survey of the Jewish past and present through the lens of "cultural analysis law" is enlightening and instructive, and especially the discussion of how the different denominations (and post denominations) of American Judaism have juggled legal and nonlegal considerations in confronting hot-button issues in modernity (who is a Jew, homosexuality, gender equality, etc.)."

Through personal narratives and qualitative empirical studies, more than 40 authors expose the daunting challenges faced by academic women of color as they navigate the often hostile terrain of higher education, including hiring, promotion, tenure, and relations with students, colleagues, and administrators.

helps you learn new material by working through chapters that explain each topic in simple language challenges your understanding with hypotheticals similar to those presented in class provides valuable opportunity to study for the final by reviewing the hypotheticals as well as the structure and reasoning behind the corresponding analysis quickly gets to the point in conversational style laced with humor remains a favorite among law school students is often recommended by professors who encourage the use of study guides works with ALL the major casebooks, suits any class on a given topic provides an alternative perspective to help you understand your casebook and in-class lectures.

Here, in this 1850 classic, a powerful refutation of Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto, published two years earlier, Bastiat discusses: what is law?, why socialism constitutes legal plunder, the proper function of the law, the law and morality, "the vicious circle of socialism", and the basis for stable government.

This second edition of Breastfeeding Made Simple is an essential guide to breastfeeding that every new and expectant mom should own-a comprehensive resource that takes the mystery out of basic breastfeeding dynamics. —Carrie Finger, BFA, IBCLC, LCCE, lactation program director at Aviva Institute.

Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence? Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions—with no end in sight. Based on fifteen years of original research Acemoglu and Robinson marshall extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America, England, Europe, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, including: Are we moving from a virtuous circle in which efforts by elites to aggrandize power are resisted to a vicious one that enriches and empowers a small minority? “For economics and political-science students, surely, but also for the general reader who will appreciate how gracefully the authors wear their erudition.” — Kirkus Reviews “Provocative stuff; backed by lots of brain power.” — Library Journal “This is an intellectually rich book that develops an important thesis with verve. large and ambitious new book.” — The Daily “ Why Nations Fail is a splendid piece of scholarship and a showcase of economic rigor.” —The Wall Street Journal "Ranging from imperial Rome to modern Botswana, this book will change the way people think about the wealth and poverty of nations...as ambitious as Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel ." A wonderfully readable mix of history, political science, and economics, this book will change the way we think about economic development. "Some time ago a little-known Scottish philosopher wrote a book on what makes nations succeed and what makes them fail. The Wealth of Nations is still being read today. “This fascinating and readable book centers on the complex joint evolution of political and economic institutions, in good directions and bad. Acemoglu and Robinson provide an enormous range of historical examples to show how such shifts can tilt toward favorable institutions, progressive innovation and economic success or toward repressive institutions and eventual decay or stagnation. Written with a deep knowledge of economics and political history, this is perhaps the most powerful statement made to date that ‘institutions matter.’ A provocative, instructive, yet thoroughly enthralling book.” —Joel Mokyr, Robert H. Strotz Professor of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Economics and History, Northwestern University. “This important and insightful book, packed with historical examples, makes the case that inclusive political institutions in support of inclusive economic institutions is key to sustained prosperity. This is important analysis not to be missed.” —Peter Diamond, Nobel Laureate in Economics “Acemoglu and Robinson have made an important contribution to the debate as to why similar-looking nations differ so greatly in their economic and political development. The openness of a society, its willingness to permit creative destruction, and the rule of appear to be decisive for economic development.” —Kenneth Arrow, Professor Emeritus, Stanford University, Nobel Laureate in Economics, 1972 “Acemoglu and Robinson—two of the world's leading experts on development—reveal why it is not geography, disease, or culture which explains why some nations are rich and some poor, but rather a matter of institutions and politics. “Some time ago a little known Scottish philosopher wrote a book on what makes nations succeed and what makes them fail. The Wealth of Nations is still being read today. Two centuries from now our great-great-…-great grandchildren will be, similarly, reading Why Nations Fail .” —George Akerlof, Nobel Laureate in Economics, 2001 “In this stunningly wide ranging book Acemoglu and Robinson ask a simple but vital question, why do some nations become rich and others remain poor? This book is a must read at a moment where governments right across the western world must come up with the political will to deal with a debt crisis of unusual proportions.” —Steve Pincus, Bradford Durfee Professor of History and International and Area Studies, Yale University “The authors convincingly show that countries escape poverty only when they have appropriate economic institutions, especially private property and competition. More originally, they argue countries are more likely to develop the right institutions when they have an open pluralistic political system with competition for political office, a widespread electorate, and openness to new political leaders. This intimate connection between political and economic institutions is the heart of their major contribution, and has resulted in a study of great vitality on one of the crucial questions in economics and political economy.” — Gary S. Becker, Nobel Laureate in Economics, 1992 “This not only a fascinating and interesting book: it is a really important one. The highly original research that Professors Acemoglu and Robinson have done, and continue to do, on how economic forces, politics and policy choices evolve together and constrain each other, and how institutions affect that evolution, is essential to understanding the successes and failures of societies and nations.

Provocative, thrilling, and ultimately empowering, Future Crimes will serve as an urgent call to action that shows how we can take back control of our own devices and harness technology’s tremendous power for the betterment of humanity—before it’s too late. “Addictive....Introduces readers to this brave new world of technology, where robbers have been replaced by hackers, and victims include nearly anyone on the Web...He presents his myriad hard-to-imagine cybercrime examples in the kind of matter-of-fact voice he probably perfected as an investigator. He rightly urges the private and public sectors to work more closely together, ‘crowdsourcing’ ideas and know-how…The best time to start tackling future crimes is now.” — The Economist. Even better, Goodman offers practical solutions so that we not only survive progress, but thrive to an extent never previously imagined.” — Peter H. Diamandis, New York Times bestselling author of Abundance ; CEO, XPRIZE Foundation; Exec. " Future Crimes reads like a collection of unusually inventive, terrifying plots conjured up by the world's most ingenious science fiction writer...except that almost every story in this goosebump-raising book is happening all around us right now. — Jane McGonigal, New York Times bestselling author of Reality is Broken “As Marc Goodman shows in this highly readable book, what is going on in the background of your computer has turned the internet into a fertile ground for massive crime… Future Crimes has the pace of a sci-fi film, but it’s happening now.” — Express UK “As new loopholes open up in cyberspace, people inevitably find ways to flow through them. No one has a better vantage point than Goodman, and you won't want to touch another keyboard until you know what's in these pages.” —David Eagleman, New York Times bestselling author of Incognito " Future Crimes is the Must Read Book of the Year. His philosophy matches my own: apply the promise of exponentially growing information technologies to overcome age old challenges of humankind while at the same time understand and contain the perils. Mr. Marc Goodman’s book Future Crimes brings our global dialogue on safety and security to the next level by exploring how potential criminals are exploiting new and emerging technologies for their nefarious purposes. Never before has somebody so masterfully researched and presented the frightening extent to which current and emerging technologies are harming national security, putting people’s lives at risk, eroding privacy, and even altering our perceptions of reality. Future Crimes paints a sobering picture of how rapidly evolving threats to technology can lead to disasters that replicate around the world at machine speed. The question I am most often asked in my lectures is, ‘What’s the next big crime?’ The answer is in this book.” — Frank Abagnale, New York Times bestselling author of Catch Me If You Can and Stealing Your Life. Marc Goodman, one of the world’s leading experts on the field, takes the reader on a scary, but eye-opening tour of the next generation nexus of crime, technology, and security." "In this highly readable and exhaustive debut, [Marc Goodman] details the many ways in which hackers, organized criminals, terrorists and rogue governments are exploiting the vulnerability of our increasingly connected society...Goodman suggests solid actions to limit the impact of cybercrimes, ranging from increased technical literacy of the public to a massive government 'Manhattan Project' for cybersecurity to develop strategies against online threats. — Kirkus starred review "[A] hair-raising exposé of cybercrime...Goodman’s breathless but lucid account is good at conveying the potential perils of emerging technologies in layman’s terms, and he sprinkles in deft narratives of the heists already enabled by them...A timely wake-up call." Goodman goes beyond lurid headlines to explore the implications of technologies that are transforming every industry and society on Earth—in the process creating an ocean of real-time personal data plied by businesses, governments, and criminals alike. Far from a screed against tech, Marc Goodman's Future Crimes is an eye-opening and urgent call to action to preserve the benefits of our high-tech revolution." — Daniel Suarez, New York Times bestselling author of Daemon "In the wake of North Korea's cyber-terrorist attack on Sony as well as numerous hacker break-ins throughout the corporate world, it's become increasingly obvious that neither governments nor corporations are prepared for the onslaught of problems...Goodman nails the issue and provides useful input on the changes needed to make our systems and infrastructure more secure."