Top 15 in Law
Week of July 27, 2026
by Peter Corning
We've been told, again and again, that life is unfair. But what if we're wrong simply to resign ourselves to this situation? Drawing on the evidence from our evolutionary history and the emergent science of human nature, this title shows that we have an innate sense of fairness.
by Assaf Likhovski
One of the major questions facing the world today is the role of law in shaping identity and in balancing tradition with modernity. In an arid corner of the Mediterranean region in the first decades of the twentieth century, Mandate Palestine was confront

by Ronald R. Thomas
This is a book about the relationship between the development of forensic science in the nineteenth century and the invention of the new literary genre of detective fiction in Britain and America. Ronald R. Thomas examines the criminal body as a site of interpretation and enforcement in a wide range of fictional examples, from Poe, Dickens and Hawthorne through Twain and Conan Doyle to Hammett, Chandler and Christie. He is especially concerned with the authority the literary detective manages to secure through the 'devices' - fingerprinting, photography, lie detectors - with which he discovers the truth and establishes his expertise, and the way in which those devices relate to broader questions of cultural authority at decisive moments in the history of the genre. This is an interdisciplinary project, framing readings of literary texts with an analysis of contemporaneous developments in criminology, the rules of evidence, and modern scientific accounts of identity.
by Richard T. Ford
What is black culture? Does it have an essence? What do we lose and gain by assuming that it does, and by building our laws accordingly? This bold and provocative book questions the common presumption of political multiculturalism that social categories such as race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality are defined by distinctive cultural practices. Richard Ford argues against law reform proposals that would attempt to apply civil rights protections to "cultural difference." Unlike many criticisms of multiculturalism, which worry about "reverse discrimination" or the erosion of core Western cultural values, the book's argument is primarily focused on the adverse effects of multicultural rhetoric and multicultural rights on their supposed beneficiaries. In clear and compelling prose, Ford argues that multicultural accounts of cultural difference do not accurately describe the practices of social groups. Instead these accounts are prescriptive: they attempt to canonize a narrow, parochial, and contestable set of ideas about appropriate group culture and to discredit more cosmopolitan lifestyles, commitments, and values. The book argues that far from remedying discrimination and status hierarchy, "cultural rights" share the ideological presuppositions, and participate in the discursive and institutional practices, of racism, sexism, and homophobia. Ford offers specific examples in support of this thesis, in diverse contexts such as employment discrimination, affirmative action, and
by Shanna R. Van Slyke
Although white-collar crime has caused a substantial amount of damage on both the individual and societal levels, it often ranks below street crime as a matter of public concern. Thus, white-collar crime remains an ambiguous and even controversial topic among academics, with a relative dearth of scholarly focus on the issue. The Oxford Handbook of White-Collar Crime offers a comprehensive treatment of the most up-to-date theories and research regarding white-collar crime. Contributors tackle a vast range of topics, including the impact of white-collar crime, the contexts in which white-collar crime occurs, current crime policies and debates, and examinations of the criminals themselves. The volume concludes with a set of essays that discuss potential responses for controlling white-collar crime, as well as promising new avenues for future research. Uniting conceptual theories, empirical research, and ethnographic data, the Handbook provides the first unified analytic framework on white-collar crime. Given the astronomical aggregate losses to victims, building a more nuanced understanding of the dynamics of white-collar crime is a topic of immediate social concern. The definitive resource on white-collar crime, this Handbook will be a valuable resource for developing both intellectual and policy-related solutions.
by Ronald D. Brown
Dying on the Job looks at the variety of reasons people take the lives of coworkers or themselves and offers explanations for their behavior. Some are pathological; others are simply stretched to limits they can't sustain. The author offers real stories throughout and ends wit...
by Donald Grier Stephenson Jr.
This book is a collection of comprehensive background essays coupled with carefully edited Supreme Court case excerpts designed to explore constitutional law and the role of the Supreme Court in its development and interpretation. Well-grounded in both theory and politics, the book endeavors to heighten students’ understanding of this critical part of the American political system. New to the 18th Edition An account of the Trump impeachments and a full discussion of the recent Supreme Court transitions including recent Supreme Court transitions including the fraught Kavanaugh hearings, the death of Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and the nomination process surrounding Amy Coney Barrett. Fourteen new cases carefully edited and excerpted, including Chifalo v. Washington (2020) on the Electoral College, Masterpiece Cakeshop (2018) on gay rights, and three Trump cases as well. Thirty-one new cases discussed in chapter essays in addition.
by Gilbert Geis
In compelling narrative, the authors probe the sensational cases of Nathan F. Leopold, Jr., and Richard A. Loeb, the Scottsboro "boys," Bruno Richard Hauptmann, Alger Hiss, and O.J. Simpson, highlighting significant lessons about criminal behavior and the administration of criminal justice. Each case study details the crime, the police investigation, and the court proceedings, profiles the major players, and examines the outcome and aftermath of the trial. The authors untangle the perplexities surrounding the cases and illuminate the many mysteries that remain unsolved today. These celebrated trials reveal issues of overzealous prosecution, sloppy police work, judicial bias, race, class, and ethnic struggles, and the role of wealth in securing a competent defense. They also show how the temper of the times and frenzied media coverage heightened the intensity of drama in the cases.
by Susan Riddick-Grisham
Pediatric Life Care Planning and Case Management provides a comprehensive and unique reference that goes beyond the clinical discussion to include legal and financial aspects, life expectancy data, and assistive technology. It also includes case samples of actual plans related to specific conditions. The book is divided into five parts: Normal Grow
by George P. Fletcher
Americans hate and distrust their government. At the same time, Americans love and trust their government. These contradictory attitudes are resolved by Fletcher's novel interpretation of constitutional history. He argues that we have two constitutions--still living side by side--one that caters to freedom and fear, the other that satisfied our needs for security and social justice. The first constitution came into force in 1789. It stresses freedom, voluntary association, and republican elitism. The second constitution begins with the Gettysburg Address and emphasizes equality, organic nationhood, and popular democracy. These radical differences between our two constitutions explain our ambivalence and self-contradictory attitudes toward government. With September 11 the second constitution--which Fletcher calls the Secret Constitution--has become ascendant. When America is under threat, the nation cultivates its solidarity. It overcomes its fear and looks to government for protection and the pursuit of social justice. Lincoln's messages of a strong government and a nation that must "long endure" have never been more relevant to American politics. "Fletcher's argument has intriguing implications beyond the sweeping subject of this profoundly thought-provoking book."--The Denver Post

by John D. Leshy
In this highly entertaining as well as profoundly scholarly study of the 1872 Mining Law, John Leshy has produced both a legal treatise and a history of the West written from the vantage point of mineral exploration and production. The Mining Law illuminates some of the more obscure corners of Western history, federal land and resource policy, and the relationships among various branches of government in making and carrying out policy. For more than a century the mining of hard-rock minerals in the United States has been carried out under this law, which was written to promote mineral development in the age of the pick-and-shovel prospector. It is the last important survivor of the great laws undergirding the westward expansion. The Mining Law has never been changed to reflect modern mining technologies or newer social values that question whether mineral extraction is the best use of the land and its resources. From its enactment, the Mining Law's inadequacies have given rise to illegal abuse, litigation, and patchwork regulation by federal agencies and judge-made law. Leshy explains how the law has survived by a combination of executive and judicial manipulation in the face of legislative paralysis. Today, as concern mounts about economic efficiency, government regulation, environmental protection, the rebuilding of the nation's industrial base, and competing uses of the land and its resources, the argument for reform of the law becomes compelling. The present law not only
by H. Richard Uviller
Provides a historically grounded examination of the original meaning of the 2nd Amendment and an interpretation of the rights it safeguards (or doesn't) in the light of that historical understanding.

by Burrhus Frederic Skinner
A Utopian community organized around behaviorist principles offers provocative alternatives to a society lacking direction
by Virginia Page Fortna
"Fortna demonstrates that peacekeeping is an extremely effective policy tool, dramatically reducing the risk that war will resume. Moreover, she explains that relatively small and militarily weak consent-based peacekeeping operations are often just as effective as larger, more robust enforcement missions. Fortna examines the causal mechanisms of peacekeeping, paying particular attention to the perspective of the peacekept--the belligerents themselves--on whose decisions the stability of peace depends."--publisher website.
by Rumu Sarkar
This book describes how international development works, its shortcomings, its theoretical and practical foundations, along with prescriptions for the future. International Development Law provides the reader with new perspectives on the origins of global poverty, identifies legal impediments to sustainable economic growth, and provides a better understanding of the challenges faced by the international community in resolving global poverty issues. The text is structured into two basic parts: the first part deals with the theoretical and philosophic foundations of the subject, and the second part sets forth issues relating to the international financial architecture, namely, international borrowing practices, privatization, and emerging economies. In particular, the book provides new, innovative analysis on corruption as an impediment to sustainable development. The three interlocking facets of corruption are examined: transnational organized crime, Islamic-based international terrorism, and corruption within emerging economies and the international banking system. Thus fresh new analysis adds depth and clarity to a field that heretofore has been scattered and superficial. Finally, the “right to development” within the international human rights discourse is critically reviewed, particularly in light of new jurisprudence emerging from the African context.This book offers a fresh, new and balanced legal perspective on the development process. The text has been rigorously resea
