The numbers are staggering: One-third of America’s adult population has passed through the criminal justice system and now has a criminal record. Many more were never convicted, but are nonetheless subject to surveillance by the state. Never before has...

Why it's wrong to single out religious liberty for special legal protectionsThis provocative book addresses one of the most enduring puzzles in political philosophy and constitutional theory—why is religion singled out for preferential treatment in both...

The rise of China's economy has led to a substantial increase in disputes involving intellectual property rights, including patents. Not only are foreign companies suing domestic companies and domestic companies suing foreign companies, but patent...

Informed in 1944 that she was “not of the sex” entitled to be admitted to Harvard Law School, African American activist Pauli Murray confronted the injustice she called “Jane Crow.” In the 1960s and 1970s, the analogies between sex and race...

This book traces the origins of the "illegal alien" in American law and society, explaining why and how illegal migration became the central problem in U.S. immigration policy—a process that profoundly shaped ideas and practices about citizenship, race,...

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A “searching and emotionally intimate memoir” (The New York Times) told with a candor never before undertaken by a sitting Justice. This “powerful defense of empathy” (The Washington Post) is destined to become a classic of...

What is law? This question has preoccupied philosophers from Plato to Thomas Hobbes to H. L. A. Hart. Yet many others find it perplexing. How could we possibly know how to answer such an abstract question? And what would be the point of doing so? In...

Plunder examines the dark side of the Rule of Law and explores how it has been used as a powerful political weapon by Western countries in order to legitimize plunder – the practice of violent extraction by stronger political actors victimizing weaker...

In Brennan and Democracy, a leading thinker in U.S. constitutional law offers some powerful reflections on the idea of "constitutional democracy," a concept in which many have seen the makings of paradox. Here Frank Michelman explores the apparently...

A Washington Post Notable Work of NonfictionFrom the moment Chief Justice Roberts botched Barack Obama's oath of office, the relationship between the Court and the White House has been a fraught one. Grappling with issues as diverse as campaign finance,...

Between the Second World War and the early 1970s, political leaders, activists, citizens, protestors. and freedom fighters triggered a human rights revolution in world affairs. Stimulated particularly by the horrors of the crimes against humanity in the...

A fascinating account of how the law determines or dismantles identity and personhoodAbused dogs, prisoners tortured in Guantánamo and supermax facilities, or slaves killed by the state—all are deprived of personhood through legal acts. Such deprivations...

A memoir filled with “valuable, passionate insights” from the lawyer who argued the landmark Roe v. Wade case to the Supreme Court (Kirkus Reviews).More than 40 years ago, the highest court in the land handed down a decision that would forever alter the...

The seven original essays included in this volume offer a sophisticated perspective on issues about the objectivity of legal interpretation and judicial decision-making. They examine objectivity from both metaphysical and epistemological perspectives and...

The 1921 Tulsa Race Riot was the country's bloodiest civil disturbance of the century. Thirty city blocks were burned to the ground, perhaps 150 died, and the prosperous black community of Greenwood, Oklahoma, was turned to rubble.Brophy draws on his own...

As a young lawyer in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Louis Brandeis, born into a family of reformers who came to the United States to escape European anti-Semitism, established the way modern law is practiced. He was an early champion...

Since Brown v. Board of Education and the desegregation battles of the 1960s and 1970s, the legal pursuit of educational opportunity in the United States has been framed largely around race. But for nearly thirty years now, a less-noticed but...

A spellbinding account of the real facts of the Central Park jogger case that powerfully reexamines one of New York City's most notorious crimes and its aftermath. •A must-read after watching Ava DuVernay's When They See UsOn April 20th, 1989, two...

The rise of the New Judicial Federalism movement in the 1970s marked a sea-change in the history of state constitutional law by shifting the focus of power away from the central government in ways that had not occurred since the Equal Protection Clause...

Balancing respect for religious conviction and the values of liberal democracy is a daunting challenge for judges and lawmakers, particularly when religious groups seek exemption from laws that govern others. Should students in public schools be allowed...