Ronald Dworkin

How should a judge’s moral convictions bear on his or her judgments about what the law is? Lawyers, sociologists, philosophers, politicians, and judges all have answers to that question: these range from nothing to everything. In his new book Ronald Dworkin argues that the question is much more complex than it has often been taken to be and charts a variety of dimensions–semantic, jurisprudential, and doctrinal–in which law and morals are undoubtedly interwoven.

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Stuart Banner

Between the early seventeenth century and the early twentieth century, nearly all the land in the United States was transferred from American Indians to whites. How did Indians actually lose their land? Stuart Banner argues that neither simple coercion nor simple consent reflects the complicated legal history of land transfers. Instead, time, place, and the balance of power between Indians and settlers decided the outcome of land struggles.

“In deceptively simply prose, Stuart Banner lays out the complexities and contradictions of the long history of how Anglo-Americans justified the dispossession of Native Americans. His even-handed exploration of the moral gymnastics necessary for lawyers, politicians, and writers to make expropriation seem logical and Native participation voluntary breathes new life into the old saying about the pen proving mightier than the sword.”
–Daniel K. Richter, author of Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America

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Michael Sandel

Liberals often worry that inviting moral and religious argument into the public sphere runs the risk of intolerance and coercion. These essays respond to that concern by showing that substantive moral discourse is not at odds with progressive public purposes, and that a pluralist society need not shrink from engaging the moral and religious convictions that its citizens bring to public life.

We need all the sane voices we can get in the public square and Sandel’s is one of the sanest.”
–Jean Bethke Elshtain, The University of Chicago Divinity School

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Martha C. Nussbaum

Theories of social justice, addressing the world and its problems, must respond to the real and changing dilemmas of the day. A brilliant work of practical philosophy, Frontiers of Justice is dedicated to this proposition. Taking up three urgent problems of social justice–those with physical and mental disabilities, all citizens of the world, and nonhuman animals–neglected by current theories and thus harder to tackle in practical terms and everyday life, Martha Nussbaum seeks a theory of social justice that can guide us to a richer, more responsive approach to social cooperation.

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Spencer R. Weart

“This is a terrific book... Perhaps the finest compliment I could give this book is to report that I intend to use it instead of my own book...for my climate class. The Discovery of Global Warming is more up-to-date, better balanced historically, beautifully written, and, not least important, short and to the point.”"
–Stephen H. Schneider, Nature

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Gilles Kepel

“In [The War for Muslim Minds], a wide-ranging survey of events over the past few years, Gilles Kepel makes the case that the West is losing exactly such a war. Islamism may be in decline but its replacement is hardly better: a less focused but equally bitter rejection of the West. This rejection has come about, he argues, partly because of Islam’s own misguided sense of modernity but partly, too, because of U.S. policies that were designed to do the opposite–to provide an alternative to antimarket, antidemocratic ideologies.”
–Ian Johnson, Wall Street Journal

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This book offers a panoramic history of our country’s ruling elites from the time of the American Revolution to the present. At its heart is the greatest of American paradoxes: How have tiny minorities of the rich and privileged consistently exercised so much power in a nation built on the notion of rule by the people? In a series of thought-provoking essays, leading scholars of American history examine every epoch in which ruling economic elites have shaped our national experience.

“One of the enduring mysteries of American politics, from the days of the Constitutional convention to the Bush administration, has been how, in a democracy, wealthy elites have managed to exert a powerful influence on public life. In this book, some of our finest historians address this question and in so doing offer a host of new insights into our national past and present. Class is the feature of American life that dares not speak its name, but these essays go a long way toward explaining how it operates in American politics.”
–Eric Foner, Columbia University

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Andrew J. Bacevich

“[A] straightforward ‘critical interpretation of American statecraft in the 1990s... He is straightforward, too, in establishing where he stands on the political spectrum about US foreign policy... Bacevich insists that there are no differences in the key assumptions governing the foreign policy of the administrations of Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II–and this will certainly be the subject of passionate debate... Bacevich’s argument persuades...by means of engaging prose as well as the compelling and relentless accumulation of detail... Bring[s] badly needed [perspective] to troubled times.”
–James A. Miller, Boston Globe

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Herbert Hovenkamp

“This book exemplifies again why Professor Hovenkamp is one of the most cited and highly regarded authorities on antitrust today. The writing is interesting, thoughtful and thought-provoking, sprinkled with useful examples, and is easy to read. In his simple yet highly analytical style, Hovenkamp analyzes criticizes, and offers solutions to some of the main problems faced by antitrust doctrine and enforcement today.”
–Michal S. Gal, NYU Center for Law and Business

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Marion R. Fremont-Smith

“Whether you call it civil society, social capital, or the nonprofit charitable sector, this vital and diverse sector deserves the highest quality of attention by democratic institutions, citizens, and scholars. Marion Fremont-Smith provides the single best resource for understanding the issues raised by government regulation of religions, foundations, social service agencies, hospitals, arts organizations, and other parts of the nonprofit sector.”
–Martha Minow, Harvard Law School, and author of Partners, Not Rivals: Privatization and the Public Good

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