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

Editorial Consultants:

This month's issue centers on Edward Lazarus's Closed Chambers: The First Eyewitness Account of the Epic Struggles Inside the Supreme Court, the controversial exposé on the Rehnquist Court that recently has hit the bookstores. The Book Review section features an audio interview with Edward Lazarus, a transcript of the interview, and commentaries by noted constitutional scholars, political scientists, and journalists. Past-Perfect presents a retrospective look at the press's reception of The Brethren -- the book to which Closed Chambers is often compared -- when it first came out in 1979.

Forthcoming: Tribe, Tragedy, & TV

Tribe: It's been a long while since we saw the last edition of Professor Laurence Tribe's American Constitutional Law. The first edition of the work appeared in 1978, the second edition in 1988. This December brings the release of the first of two volumes of the third edition of the famous treatise. The third edition is a major revision, so much so that the second volume will not be published until the year 2000. Foundation Press remains the publisher. The first two editions have been cited by the Supreme Court in some 52 cases, Clinton v. Jones (1997) being the last. Look for more on Tribe and his treatise in a future issue of Books-on-Law.

Tragedy: Also on the constitutional law front, New York University Press will soon publish Constitutional Stupidities, Constitutional Tragedies (cloth: $60.00 / paper: $20.00). The 300-page book is edited by law professors William Eskridge (Yale) and Sanford Levinson (Texas). The volume (another Editor-in-Chief Niko Pfund idea) brings together many of the "names" in constitutional law, and invites them to answer the question: What is the most stupid and tragic provision of the Constitution? The contributors (totaling 39) include Akhil Amar, Philip Bobbitt, Rebecca Brown, Steven Calabresi, Lawrence Sager, Marie Failinger, Gary Jacobsohn, Lewis LaRue, Robert Nagel, Pamela Karlen, Robert Post, Michael Seidman, and John Yoo, among others. Constitutional Stupidities, Constitutional Tragedies will appear in bookstores by mid-summer.

TV: In 1989, the Yale Law Journal published a symposium issue on L.A. Law. Now, Hollywood is about to receive more legal scrutiny. This July, Carolina Academic Press will release Prime Time Law: Fictional Television as Legal Narrative (cloth & paper; pp. 330), edited by Nova South Eastern University law professors Robert Jarvis and Paul Joseph. The book contains 17 original essays on the law as acted out in television programs such as L.A. Law, N.Y.P.D. Blue, Law & Order, The Defenders, and Hill Street Blues. The contributors are law, political science, history, English, and communications professors. Charles B. Rosenberg, the lawyer/script-consultant to L.A. Law, wrote the book's foreword. The epilogue was authored by Illinois University law professor Ronald Rotunda.

We will be profiling more forthcoming books throughout the summer. So stay with us, and learn about the future before it arrives.

The Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities has just published what is certain to be among the most artistic books ever designed concerning freedom of expression. Censorship & Silencing: Practices and Cultural Regulation (1998) (paper: $35.00; pp. 350) is edited by Professor Robert C. Post (UC Berkeley) and was designed by Bruce Mau (with Chris Rowat) of Toronto. Artistic expression is everywhere to be found in the book's imaginative graphics, pictures, type, and overall layout. Its 14 essays, covering a variety of censorship themes, are equally creative -- with contributions by Wendy Brown (Women's Studies, UC Santa Cruz), Judith Butler (Rhetoric & Literature, UC Berkeley), Richard Burt (English, University of Massachusetts), Ruth Gavison (Human Rights, Hebrew University), George Marcus (Anthropology, Rice University), and Frederick Schauer (Harvard's Kennedy School of Government), among others. The carefully planned book is the outgrowth of a half-dozen conferences held in 1994-1995, hosted by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities, and the Humanities Research Institute of the University of California.

Next Issue

The following books, among others, will be reviewed in the next issue of Books-on-Law:

• Lincoln Caplan (U.S. News & World Report) reviewing Ken Gormley's Archibald Cox (Addison-Welsley, 1997)

• Marion Crain (University of North Carolina) reviewing Walter Olson's The Excuse Factory (Free Press, 1997)

• David Kretzmer (Hebrew University) reviewing Richard Delgado & Jean Stefancic's Must we Defend Nazis? (NYU Press, 1997) & Hate Speech on Campus (Northeastern University Press, 1997)

• Louise LaMothe (L.A. attorney) reviewing Suzanne Nossel & Elizabeth Westfall's Presumed Equal: What America's Top Women Lawyers Really Think About Their Law Firms (Career Press, 1998)

• Dennis Patterson (Rutgers-Camden) reviewing David Dyzenhaus's Legality & Legitimacy: Carl Schmitt, Hans Kelsen, and Hermann Heller in Weimar (Oxford University Press, 1997)

• David Post (Temple) reviewing Technology & Privacy (Philip Agre & Marc Rotenberg, editors) (MIT, 1997)

• Janet Spragens (American University) reviewing Edward McCaffery's Taxing Women (University of Chicago Press, 1997)

• Melvin Urofsky (Virginia Commonwealth) reviewing David Rabban's Free Speech in Its Forgotten Years (Cambridge, 1997)
  

Last but certainly not least, we are pleased to note that, after being online for only three weeks, Books-on-Law was selected as the "Site of the Week" by Books AtoZ, an online "research tool" promoting the production, distribution, and location of books. Check out the notices given to Books-on-Law on both the Awards page and the Other Interesting Places page.  Moreover, Books on Law was featured in the "Web Watch" column written by Calvin Reid for Publishers Weekly (April 27, 1998, p. 16).  Entitled "Legal Eagles Online," the article called Books-on-Law "lively, academically oriented," offering "accessible reviews of trade and academic titles." 

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: 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 California at Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall); 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, 1998. —————————————————————————————
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© Bernard J. Hibbitts, 1998. 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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