JURIST: Books-on-Law is edited by Ronald K.L. Collins and David Skover of the Seattle University School of Law

Editorial Consultants:

For the more jurisprudentially inclined, we offer Lawrence E. Mitchell reviewing Michael J. Sandel’s Liberalism and the Limits of Justice, followed by Margaret Chon reviewing Jack Balkin’s Cultural Software. Richard Weisberg examines The Law Under the Swastika by Michael Stolleis.  Tackling two new books, Dennis Patterson reviews Richard Markovits’ Matters of Principle and Peter Morton’s An Institutional Theory of Law.  Finally, Frank H. Wu shares his thoughts on Citizenship and Civil Society by Thomas Janoski.

Jack E. White of Time magazine (6-26-95) used the phrase "Uncle Tom Justice" to describe him.  Others have been less kind.  But Scott Douglas Gerber attempts to be more judicious and balanced in his just-published First Principles: The Jurisprudence of Clarence Thomas (New York University Press, 1999) (cloth: $30.00; pp. 336).  Contrary to some of the popular conventions of the day, Gerber approaches his subject with more of a willingness to judge Justice Clarence Thomas by more neutral standards.  (Is that still possible in our postmodern era?)

Gerber’s First Principles is the latest of many books and articles on Clarence Thomas, though virtually all of the earlier scholarship focused on the Justice’s confirmation hearings.  The Gerber book comes on the heals of Jane Flax’s The American Dream in Black & White: The Clarence Thomas Hearings (Cornell University Press, 1998).

His study of the judicial mind of Justice Clarence Thomas, Gerber told us, is a "non-partisan look" at the Justice’s political/judicial theories, the major areas of his public law decisions, and the civil rights and federalism aspects of his jurisprudence.  Gerber (J.D., Ph.D.) "dismisses the conventional view that Justice Thomas is Justice Scalia’s puppet."  After examining Thomas’s natural law theories against the backdrop of his judicial opinions, Gerber also noted: "I found him consistently inconsistent."  Still, this is a measured critique to be considered alongside of a number of more positive observations.

So what does the Thomas story say about the judicial process?  That is the question Gerber tackles at the end of his new book about this controversial public figure.

FYI: On February 9, 1999 Justice Thomas will give the keynote address in Washington, D.C. on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the Claremont Institute.  His Remarks to the National Bar Association (Memphis, TN, July 29, 1998) can be found here.  For some of Thomas’s own statements on natural law, see his exchange (9-11-91) with Senator Patrick Leahy during his confirmations hearings.

Albert Camus put it boldly: "There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide."   Cato, Cleopatra, Samson, Judas, Brutus, Plath, and Judge Henry Friendly (Chicago Tribune, 3-13-86) all confronted that problem -- all self-imposed deaths.

In his History of Suicide: Voluntary Death in the Western World (translated by Lydia Cochrane) (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999) (cloth:$35.95; pp. 420), Georges Minois describes and examines the philosophical, religious, legal, and literary debates over self-murder, from antiquity to the end of the Enlightenment and beyond.  With remarkable detail, Minois discusses the ambivalent and contradictory themes in Western culture’s approach to suicide.   Toward the end of his work, the author turns to a discussion of euthanasia, assisted suicide, and the right to die.  (See our earlier review and reply on this subject, as well as another review in our forthcoming March issue.)

Mr. Minois addresses a variety of difficult questions: When is "self-murder" (as it was once known) justifiable?  When is it honorable or dishonorable?  What impact, if any, do law and religion have on suicide?  How does history color this phenomenon?  These and other questions are considered and analyzed as Minois explores the literature from ancient Greece through the Renaissance (Bacon, Montaigne, Shakespeare, etc.) and onto the big twentieth-century issues, such as the right-to-die controversy.

Does Deconstruction bewilder you?  What about Derrida?   Does the idea of post-modernity give you the shakes?  And what about those books and law review articles by "po-mo" Jack Balkin and "viva law différence" Drucilla Cornell?

If any or all of these matters leave you cerebrally anxious, no need for Prozac.   Just trek down to your local bookstore, and ask for Life’s Little Deconstruction Book: Self Help for the Post-Hip (Norton, 1999) by Andrew Boyd.   Cost of the cure? -- a modest $7.95.

Life’s Little Deconstruction Book is a marvelous manual replete with a user-friendly intro to the world of theoretical posturing.  It is, at one and the same time, both a commentary on and a satire of its all-too-fashionable subject.  Cut with humor and insight, Andrew Boyd’s mischievous book provides the reader with a day-by-day collection of aphorisms inspired by (and pirated from) the pomo heavyweights of our time.

Some of our favorite aphorisms include:

• "Privatize truth."
• "Pass judgment without criteria."
• "Be profoundly superficial."
• "Write more about less."
• "Betray memory."
• "Beg the question."
• "Practice one-liners."

Andrew Boyd lives in Boston, and is the author of The Activist Cookbook (1997), a how-to guide for cultural activists. Read his new book and then go deconstruct yourself -- and your friends, too!

Coming Soon

The March 1999 issue of Books-on-Law will contain the following book reviews:

• William C. Banks, reviewing Christopher May’s Presidential Defiance of "Unconstitutional" Laws: Reviving the Royal Prerogative

• John C.P. Goldberg, reviewing Nan Goodman’s Shifting the Blame: Literature, Law, and the Theory of Accidents in Nineteenth-Century America

• Nan D. Hunter, reviewing Lisa Keen & Suzanne Goldberg’s Strangers to the Law: Gay People on Trial and David Richards’s Women, Gays and the Constitution: The Grounds for Feminism and Gay Rights in Culture and Law

• Daniel E. Troy, reviewing Arthur Liman’s Lawyer: A Life of Counsel and Controversy

• Thomas G. West, reviewing John Noonan, Jr.’s The Lustre of Our Country: The American Experience of Religious Freedom

• Margot L. White, reviewing Gerald Dworkin, R.G. Frey, & Sissela Bok’s Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide

Ronald K.L. Collins & David M. Skover, Editors, Books-on-Law

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JURIST: Books-on-Law™ is edited by Ronald K.L. Collins and David M. Skover of the Seattle University School of Law.

Board of Editorial Consultants: Raj Bhala, George Washington University Law School; Miriam Galston, George Washington University Law School; Kermit Hall, Ohio State University College of Law; Yale Kamisar, University of Michigan Law School; Lisa G. Lerman, Catholic University of America School of Law; David M. O'Brien, University of Virginia Department of Government and Foreign Affairs; Judith Resnik, Yale Law School; Edwin L. Rubin, University of Pennsylvania Law School; Steven H. Shriffrin, Cornell Law School; Nadine Strossen, New York Law School; David B. Wilkins, Harvard Law School.

Administrative Assistant for Books-on-Law: Ms. Nancy Ammons

© Ronald K.L. Collins and David Skover, 1999. —————————————————————————————
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© Bernard J. Hibbitts, 1999. All rights reserved. These pages may not be copied, reposted, or republished, in whole or in part, electronically or in print, without express written permission.

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