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

Editorial Consultants:

Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr has hired some of the best and the brightest to assist him in his prosecutorial efforts.  One of those selected, Stephen Bates, is a writer of no little literary feat.  Mr. Bates, literary editor of the Wilson Quarterly and former law clerk to Judge James L. Buckley (D.C. Cir.), is a widely published author.  His books include Battleground: One Mother's Crusade, the Religious Right, and the Struggle for Control of Our Classrooms (Poseidon Press, 1993); If No News, Send Rumors (St. Martin's Press, 1989); The Media & Congress (editor, Publishing Horizons, 1987); and The Spot: The Rise of Political Advertising on Television (with Edwin Diamond, MIT Press, 1984, revised eds. 1988, 1992).   He also has written for publications such as Ad Week, Nation, Weekly Standard, Washington Post, and New York Times.

On July 8, 1997, the Washington Post (sec. E, p. 3) noted that Bates and Starr purportedly were working on a scholarly book called Bridget's Story, concerning the separation of church and state.  The article reported that 15 publishers had turned down both the book proposal and the six-figure amount being sought.   Since then, the proposal has been "on ice" but may be "picked up again."  Given the more recent revelations in the Starr investigation, publishers are probably salivating at the prospect of receiving a Starr-Bates ("tell-all") book proposal -- no church book, thank you.

This October the ever-prolific Chief Justice William Rehnquist will publish his latest work, All the Laws But One: Civil Liberties in Wartime (Knopf) (cloth: $26.00; pp. 256).  In this forthcoming work, the Chief Justice discusses the various judicial responses to wartime measures taken by government to curb civil liberties.   Rehnquist's guarded and well-presented examination opens with the Civil War and proceeds through World Wars I & II, discussing the Japanese internment cases among other things.

The ideological flare of years past is gone, however, as when the young Rehnquist began his article in 44 A.B.A.J. 229 (1958) thus: "Communists, former Communists, and others of like political philosophy scored significant victories during the October, 1956, term of the Supreme Court of the United States, culminating in the historic decisions of June 17, 1957."  The decisions of which Rehnquist so forcefully complained included Justice John Marshall Harlan's rather restrained opinion in Yates v. United States, 354 U.S. 298 (1957), the case of fourteen California men charged with conspiracy to overthrow the government.

The same general topic discussed in the Chief Justice's new book is also taken up in a variety of other noted works, including In the Name of War (Harvard, 1989) by Christopher N. May (Loyola Law, Los Angeles); Fighting Faiths: The Abrams Case, the Supreme Court, and Free Speech (Viking, 1987) by Richard Polenberg (Cornell, History); Freedom Under Fire: U.S. Civil Liberties in Times of War (South End Press, 1990) by Michael Linfield (L.A. attorney); and Civil Liberties Under Attack (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1951) edited by the late Henry Steele Commager et al.  Finally, there is the classic work by James G. Randall, Constitutional Problems Under Lincoln (University of Illinois Press, 1951).

The last issue of Books-on-Law focused on the topic of multiculturalism through the lens of Beyond All Reason by Professors Farber and Sherry.  In this issue, we turn in the other philosophical direction -- to an extensive interview with Niko Pfund, the editor of New York University Press, who champions the cause of multiculturalism with a wide variety of books.

Say what you will of Niko Pfund, but don't brand him dull.  This young and energetic editor is a pace-setter in publishing, especially law-related publishing.   Early this year we interviewed him, asking about everything from trends in publishing to ad budget revenues.  The interview is in transcribed and audio formats.

He's not hunting for any new-fangled books on Derrida or post-colonialism.  No, "we are most interested in serious conservative, non-fiction books on broad social and cultural issues.  That is the gap we hope to fill," says the enterprising Thomas Spence, publisher of Spence Publishing Company in Dallas, Texas.

Spence is an unabashed conservative who launched his publishing house in May of 1996.   Before that he was schooled in conservative ways, first as an undergraduate at Dartmouth College and then as a law student at the University of Chicago Law School (J.D., 1987).  He worked with a noted Boston law firm before becoming a graduate student in medieval history at Harvard.

For now, Spence Publishing releases some dozen books a year.  "Our mission," notes Spence, "is to publish books on social and cultural issues, including books on law related to those areas.  We are not looking for books on, say, tax policy, etc."

The Weekly Standard lauded Spence Publishing Company as a "conservative publishing house."  "Yes, that is a fair description," explains Spence, "though we're on the lookout for books by liberals with something to say, too."  However that may be, this house is uninterested in watered-down or apologetic conservatism.  Consider, for example, the following recently published (and much-noticed) Spence book: F. Carolyn Graglia, Domestic Tranquility: A Brief Against Feminism (1998).

If you are a politically correct or liberal feminist, be prepared for a rude awakening.   This massive volume was authored by Mrs. Graglia, a self-described mother, lawyer, and spouse of Professor Lino Graglia of the University of Texas Law School.  The book was the topic of a roundtable discussion held on September 3, 1998, at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association.  Domestic Tranquility is scheduled to be reviewed in a future issue of Books-on-Law.

If you want the condensed version, see Ms. Graglia's August 7, 1998 Wall St. Journal op ed. "Feminism Isn't Anti-Sex. It's Only Anti-Family."

The October of Books-on-Law returns to an array of book reviews (replies and an essay, too):

• Essay: David Lowenthal, "Why the Mass Media Must Be Censored"

• Collins & Skover, "We're All Censors Now?," reviewing Robert C. Post, editor, Censorship and Silencing: Practices of Cultural Regulation (Getty Trust Publications, 1998)

• Stanley Fish, "Are There Reasons for Self-Revision?," reviewing Shane O'Neill, Impartiality in Context: Grounding Justice in a Pluralist World (State University of New York Press, 1997)

• Shane O'Neill, "Self-Revision and the Demands of Justice: Reply to Fish"

• Gregory S. Alexander, "The New Secession Movement," reviewing Edward J. Blakely & Mary Gail Snyder, Fortress America: Gated Communities in the United States (Brookings Institute Press, 1997)

• Ellen P. Aprill, "Promising Tax Reform," reviewing Michael J. Graetz, The Decline (and Fall?) of the Income Tax (W.W. Norton & Co., 1997)

• Russell R. Wheeler, "Advisory Opinions, Judicial Politics, and Constitutional Principles," reviewing Stewart Jay, Most Humble Servants: The Advisory Role of Early Judges (Yale University Press, 1997)

• Nadine Taub, "Thinking Hard about Gender, Crime, and Justice," reviewing Kathleen Daly & Lisa Maher, editors, Criminology at the Crossroads: Feminist Readings in Crime and Justice (Oxford University Press, 1998)

• Douglas Litowitz, "Is Legal Discourse Oppressive?," reviewing Just Words: Law, Language, and Power (University of Chicago Press, 1998)

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, 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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