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Legal Realism to Law in Action recounts the tradition of innovative courses at Wisconsin Law
This is a book of papers and interviews about innovative law school courses developed by faculty of the Wisconsin Law School from 1950 to 1970 that forged a path from legal realism to law and social science. These courses took a “law in action” approach to the study of law which became a signature feature of the school’s tradition from that time to the present day. “The Legal Realists of the 1920s and 30s taught that the law that mattered was the law in action, as applied by ordinary officials and experienced by ordinary people. But they mostly failed to get their program adopted as part of professional education alongside…
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Messinger’s much-cited Strategies of Control is a Digitally Remastered™ Classic of Law & Society: in print and ebooks
This groundbreaking study of transitions and control in the California prison system has been extensively read, cited, and quoted in unpublished form—and is finally available worldwide. Already a compelling part of the canon of studies in penology, criminology, sociology, and organizational theory, this new edition of STRATEGIES OF CONTROL adds a 2016 foreword by Howard S. Becker and afterword by Jonathan Simon, both contributing substantive and meaningful views of this important work. Considered influential to two generations of scholars worldwide, Messinger’s thesis examining prison systems’ organization and reform—or in some ways, regression—is said to anticipate Erving Goffman’s and Michel Foucault’s writings on “total institutions” by many years, and raised themes that…
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Galanter’s much-cited Why the Haves Come Out Ahead is now a book, adding new commentary
This is the fortieth anniversary edition of a classic of law and society, updated with extensive new commentary. Drawing a distinction between experienced “repeat players” and inexperienced “one shotters” in the U.S. judicial system, Marc Galanter establishes a recognized and applied model of how the structure of the legal system and an actor’s frequency of interaction with it can predict outcomes. Notwithstanding democratic institutions of governance and the “majestic equality” of the courts, the enactment and implementation of genuinely redistributive measures is a hard uphill struggle. In one of the most-cited essays in the legal literature, Galanter incisively demolishes the myth that courts are the prime equalizing force in American…
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Selznick’s The Organizational Weapon is Digitally Remastered,™ adding extensive new foreword by Martin Krygier
The Organizational Weapon is a classic study of the methods, propaganda, and institutions which create infiltration and eventually cooptation of organizations from within. The study applies its theory to communist techniques, but its analysis and insights have, over the years, become extremely useful in identifying and combating such methods in jihadist cells, terrorist organizations, and political groups of many varieties, not only from the Left. Its utility is demonstrated in how it has influenced and been cited by current writers on how extremist and politically astute groups recruit and infiltrate more benign organizations to make them tools of further expansion in power and action. The book is also considered excellent…
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Pritchett’s The Roosevelt Court is a classic of law & society, exploring decision-making on the Supreme Court over a decade
THE ROOSEVELT COURT is a brilliant analysis of Supreme Court decisions during a crucial decade in the Supreme Court’s history, by a political scientist “interested in the social and psychological origins of judicial attitudes and the influence of individual predilections on the development of law.” A much-cited classic of the Court and judicial decision-making from the point of view of social science and not just doctrine, this work is at last available in a convenient and well-formatted digital edition, and in new paperback too. The digital presentation includes active Contents, linked notes, and all tables and graphics from the original print editions. “One of the most informative, judicious, and illuminating…
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Jerold Auerbach explores Israeli legitimacy in his 2014 book Jewish State, Pariah Nation
Jewish statehood was restored in 1948 amid a struggle over legitimacy that has persisted in Israel ever since: Who rules? Who decides? Antagonism between the political left and right erupted into bloody violence over the Altalena. Secular-religious discord even made defining who is a Jew in a Jewish state contentious. After the Six-Day War, the return of religious Zionist settlers to biblical Judea and Samaria reframed the struggle over legitimacy. Who decides where in the Land of Israel Jews may live: settlers and rabbis or the government? Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982 provoked the first significant eruption of military disobedience, undermining the authority of the Israel Defense Forces with…
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Classic Social Science, Digitally Remastered:™ The Protection of Children, Second Edition, by Dingwall, Eekelaar & Murray
This book has not been easily available in print for many years, but it has long been regarded as an important contribution to the study of child abuse and neglect, and legal and social responses to it. This classic study of law and social work in action is based on the most extensive investigation of child abuse and neglect ever carried out in Great Britain. The authors followed the course of numerous cases from the first detection of ill-treatment to the resolution (or otherwise) of the problem. Famous for coining the much-used (and often misused or misunderstood) phrase “the rule of optimism,” this book is updated with an extensive Postscript…
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Lance Bennett & Martha Feldman Examine Juries and Narrative: What Makes People Believe a Witness?
Reconstructing Reality in the Courtroom explains what makes stories believable and how ordinary people connect complex legal arguments and evidence presented in trials to assess guilt and innocence. The explanation takes the core elements of narrative—the who, what, where, when, how, why—and shows how average people who hear hundreds of stories every day use the connections between these elements to assess credibility. A series of simple experiments outside the courtroom provides evidence for the explanation, showing that there is little relationship between the actual truth of a story and the degree to which the story is believed to be true by an audience of random listeners not familiar with the…
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Frank Zimring’s The Changing Legal World of Adolescence is Digitally Remastered™ in eBooks & in paperback
This work attempts to explain changes in the legal conception of adolescence as a stage of life and as a transition to adulthood. The intended audience includes lawyers and others—such as parents, professionals, and kids—puzzled by trends labeled “children’s liberation” and “the revolution in juvenile justice.” Much cited and long recognized as an authority, it is considered a classic of law & society. Changes in legal conceptions of youth are interesting in their own right. They are also a useful way of examining important social, political, and economic changes. It is said that legal studies, “properly pursued, lead to a fuller understanding of the larger world of which the law…
