• This Month’s Issue
• Niko Pfund Returns to OUP
• Brown v. Board Revisited
• Herstory
• Forthcoming

In the vernacular of the day: Was Lear a "survivor"? What about Cordelia? Goneril and Regan? Thankfully, Milner Ball does not venture to answer such questions. He does offer, however, some observations on Paul Kahn's Law & Love: The Trials of King Lear. Not oblivious to his own literary survival, Professor Kahn replies. So, too, Peter Brooks replies to George C. Thomas III's review of his Troubling Confessions. But survival does not always depend on an author's reply, as demonstrated by Bruce Johnson's review of First Amendment, First Principles: Verbal Acts and Freedom of Speech by John F. Wirenius. To the same effect, Jeffrey Hockett examines The Warren Court and American Politics by Lucas A. Powe, Jr., and Michael Lang analyzes Taxing Ourselves: A Citizen's Guide to the Great Debate over Tax Reform by Joel Slemrod and Jon Bakija. But, "all's well that ends well," as evidenced by Roger Abrams' review of Leveling the Playing Field: How the Law Can Make Sports Better for Fans by Paul Weiler.

Of course, you, too, can participate as sort of a "tribal council." In fact, we invite your views; so talk back to us.

If you're planning a "survivor" trip to an exotic island and need to find the perfect book, consider the selection listed in our Book Notices.

Niko Pfund, the popular and exceptional editor, has left New York University Press to return to Oxford University Press, this time as academic editor. His NYU successor has yet to be selected.

In a January 1998 Books-on-Law interview, Pfund reflected on his early years at OUP:

"When I came to NYU from Oxford University Press, I didn't really have much of an interest in publishing in Law, because I didn't really see how it could be fruitfully done.  The type of law books that Oxford published, for the most part, were fairly staid books – very monographic – and that was not something that I could feasibly do at the Press.  As I traveled around the country and talked to people at various law schools, it became clear to me that there was this generation of young, very smart, more activist-oriented scholars who were, in fact, working very much along parallel lines with many of the people in the Humanities and Social Sciences.  They struck me as being a very good network of folks, people who mentored extremely well, and who really were informed by this idea that law is not the Langdellian ideal as existing in this removed, abstract world – but, rather, there is a great dialectic between law and society."

"That, I thought, was quite appealing.  That is primarily why our [NYU] list has evolved the way it has.  I think it's absolutely crucial that a university press reflect all the various constituents of the university, and that it not be just an ideological-type press."

So, what does Pfund think of OUP at this point? Does it still publish "fairly staid books"? Now that Pfund has come home, will OUP "reflect all the various constituents of the university"?

Pfund's response: "[The OUP] editorial department is filled with young, smart folks open to all sorts of new ideas." Noting that he was very much drawn to Oxford because of its new president, Laura Brown, Pfund added: "My focus will be on traditional methodologies with new kinds of perspectives." Translated: traditional scholarship put to untraditional uses. We'll keep you posted as the tried-and-true meets the avant garde.

This coming January, Oxford University Press is scheduled to release a new book on the 1954 landmark Brown decision.

This is one of the first such significant studies done since the publication of Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality (Random House, 1977) by Richard Kluger. The forthcoming book – Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and Its Troubled Legacy (OUP, 2001) (ISBN: 0195127161) – is by James T. Patterson, a noted historian and Ford Foundation Professor of History at Brown University.

Professor Patterson narrates the story of the dramatic case and its fifty-year aftermath. A wide range of characters animates his narrative – from the little-known African-Americans who challenged segregationist laws to Thurgood Marshall, Earl Warren, segregationist politicians like Governor Orval Faubus (Ark.), and Presidents Eisenhower and Johnson.  There is even some discussion of Justice Clarence Thomas's views of the landmark decision.

Was Brown as much a triumph as most Americans believe? In exploring that issue, Professor Patterson examines a variety of complex questions that still swirl around the case. (Patterson's earlier works include his Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945-1974 (Oxford University Press, 1997), which won the 1997 Bancroft Prize in History.)

This month, Knopf releases Not One of the Boys: Living Life As a Feminist (ISBN: 0679408428) by Brenda Feigen, a leader of the Women's Movement in the 1960s and 70s. Among other things, Ms. Feigen was co-founder of the National Women's Political Caucus, founder of the Women's Action Alliance, and co-founder (with Gloria Steinem) of Ms. magazine. More recently, she served as the president of Feigen/Parrent Literary Management. She is an entertainment and literary lawyer, who also has experience running production and literary management companies. With Not One of the Boys, Feigen offers up a frank, highly personal, and wide-ranging memoir; it is a provocative and informed account of the many social struggles in which she was involved.

This November, Books-on-Law will publish a special issue dedicated to "Women & the Law."

The October issue of Books-on-Law is scheduled to contain the following:

• Jonathan Bloom, reviewing Rod Smolla, Deliberate Intent: A Lawyer Tells the True Story of Murder by the Book (Crown Publishers, 1999)
• Patricia A. Cain, reviewing David A. J. Richards, Free Speech and the Politics of Identity (Oxford University Press, 2000)
• Kermit L. Hall, reviewing Peter Irons, A People's History of the Supreme Court (Viking, reissue edition 2000)
• Chris Rideout, reviewing Anthony G. Amsterdam & Jerome S. Bruner, Minding the Law (Harvard University Press, 2000)
• Edward L. Rubin, reviewing Peter H. Schuck, The Limits of Law: Essays on Democratic Governance (Westview Press, 2000)
• Johan D. van der Vyver, reviewing Kenneth S. Broun, Black Lawyers, White Courts: The Soul of South African Law (Ohio University Press, 1999)

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
Technical Assistant for Books-on-Law: Steven Pacillio, Esq.

© Ronald K.L. Collins and David Skover, 2000.