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Recently Reviewed Titles Law & Social Policy

Magic and the Law: A collection of Essays edited by Christine A. Corcos (Durham: Carolina University Press) The nearly two dozen studies in this collection explore the very rich ways in which the rule of law and the practice of magic enrich and inform each other. The authors bring both a U.S. and a comparative law perspective while examining areas such as law and religion, criminal law, intellectual property law, the law of evidence, and animal rights. Topics include alchemy in fifteenth-century England, a discussion of how a courtroom is like a magic show, stage hypnotism and the law, Scottish witchcraft trials in the eighteenth century, the question of whether stage magicians can look to intellectual property to protect their rights, tarot card readings and the First Amendment, and an analysis of whether a magician can be qualified as an expert witness under the Federal Rules of Evidence. More

The War Against Domestic Violence edited by Lee Ross (CRC Press) Violence, including intimate partner violence, is a leading cause of death, disability, and hospitalization in the United States and other regions worldwide. Despite growing awareness, the numbers of reported and unreported incidents continue to rise. Drawing on the contributions of criminal justice practitioners and academic theorists who bring sober insight to a highly charged issue, The War Against Domestic Violence, edited by Lee Ross, associate professor of criminal justice at the University of Central Florida, offers a comprehensive, interdisciplinary study of this phenomenon. More

The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder and Other True Stories from the Nebraska-Pine Ridge Border Towns by Stew Magnuson, with a foreword by Pekka Hmlinen, with Series Editor John R. Wunder (Plains Histories Series: Texas Tech University Press) The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder engages a number of key themes of current scholarship racism, masculinity, construction of cross-cultural spaces, historical memory without the interference of a heavy theoretical apparatus. Refreshingly, Magnuson doesn't place anything between his words and readers. His stories lie bare and thoroughly accessible. Pekka Hmlinen, More

The Software Interface Between Copyright and Competition Law by Ashwin van Rooijen (Information Law: Wolters Kluwer, Brill) The success of computer programs often depends on their ability to interoperate - or communicate - with other systems. Conversely, the extent to which interoperability between computer programs is enabled or facilitated by the law can have a significant impact on innovation and free competition in software. The two legal disciplines that primarily determine the extent to which software interoperability is enabled or facilitated are copyright law and competition law. This important book offers the first in-depth analysis of the current respective copyright and competition law approaches to interoperability. With respect to copyright law, the book offers a comprehensive analysis of how copyright law has been applied to computer programs, how this form of protection affects interoperability, and how the European Software Directive - including its interpretation by courts in Member States - aims to facilitate interoperability. With respect to competition law, the author critically analyzes the application of Article 102 of the TFEU to refusals to supply interface information, including a discussion on the tension between copyright and competition law. The author also examines the substantial body of U.S. case law and accompanying literature on the interplay between copyright law, software and interoperability. Based further on a comparison with relevant ex-ante interconnection rules in European design protection law and telecommunications law, the author advances several recommendations aimed at facilitating interoperability in software copyright law.

Three interrelated approaches combine to convey an integrated and immediately accessible understanding of the subject:

• - how interoperability affects innovation and free competition in software;
• - given its effects on innovation and competition, whether copyright law or competition law should primarily be concerned with regulating software interoperability; and
• - which particular instruments are suitable to approach this problem within these respective regimes.

Because of the in-depth analysis of the software interoperability problem with related legal disciplines in both Europe and the United States, and due to the clarity of the presentation, this will be welcomed as a valuable resource by practitioners, jurists, and academics concerned with copyright protection of computer software, interoperability and the interaction between copyright and competition law. More

A Concise History of the Common Law by Theodore F.T. Plucknett (Liberty Fund) As always during its long history, English common law, upon which American law is based, has had to defend itself against the challenge of civil law's clarity and traditions. That challenge to our common law heritage remains today. A Concise History of the Common Law provides a source for common-law understanding of individual rights, not in theory only, but protected through the confusing and messy evolution of courts, and their administration as they struggled to resolve real problems. The first half of the book is a historical introduction to the study of law. Theodore F.T. Plucknett discusses the conditions in political, economic, social, and religious thought that have contributed to the genesis of law. This section is a brief but full introduction to the study of law. The second half of the book consists of chapters introducing readers to the history of some of the main divisions of law, such as criminal, tort, property, contract, and succession. Plucknett (1897-1965) was a legal historian whose lifelong passion was the investigation of early English law and society; he dedicated himself to tackling this specialized subject and was equally obsessed with explaining his findings to those less informed. He was a fellow of the British Academy and president of the Royal Historical Society from 1949 to 1953. More

Justice Brennan: Liberal Champion by Seth Stern and Stephen Wermiel (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) Justice Brennan is an insider look at court history and the life of William Brennan (1906-1997), champion of free speech and public access to information, and widely considered the most influential Supreme Court justice of the twentieth century. Brennan served as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court from 1956 to 1990 and was known during his term for being a leader of the judicially liberal wing of the Court. But the Court and all of American politics is still roiled by the 40-year long conservative backlash that Brennan's decisions about school prayer, the death penalty, and affirmative action helped fuel. While he remains a hero to two generations of progressive lawyers including Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, he is also still the symbol of judicial activism decried by conservatives.More

Justice in Genetics: Intellectual Property and Human Rights from a Cosmopolitan Liberal Perspective by Louise Bernier (Edward Elgar) The opposition between human rights and intellectual property concretely, between civil society and industry has left millions of people without needed medicines and has had only limited success in encouraging research on the diseases that overwhelmingly affect the world's poor. If one truly wishes to address both the economic and health conditions in developing countries, one would need to overcome this opposition.
The analysis in Justice in Genetics offers a justification for engaging in a global and more equitable redistribution of health-related resources. Louise Bernier, Professor and Head, Law and Life Sciences Program, University of Sherbrooke, Quebec, examines if and how this theory of distribution translates into positive law and analyzes the barriers to legal compliance and global distributive justice in health. Other topics analyzed in Justice in Genetics include intellectual property and international human rights and the extent to which the philosophy and structure of each of these normative systems furthers the goal of distributing benefits equitably and globally; the use of strong and original normative landmarks to justify relying on a cosmopolitan approach to global justice based on health needs; and the social, political, economic and legal obstacles and opportunities resulting from the commercialization of the quickly evolving field of genetics.
As described in the preface, genetics is one sector in which there has been tremendous evolution and progress over the last few decades. While it is believed that genetics could offer tremendous opportunities for global health improvement, there is also a fear that existing global health inequalities will be amplified by the evolution of genetics. More

The Creeping Codification of the New Lex Mercatoria, 2nd Revised Edition by Klaus Peter Berger (Kluwer Law International) This greatly revised edition of an influential 1999 book consolidates its authoritative advocacy of the New Lex Mercatoria (NLM). Since the publication of the first edition, self-regulation and private governance in international business have gained world-wide recognition. Three dynamic commercial law initiatives in particular demonstrate that, in spite of the long-lasting dispute about the nature and dogmatic underpinnings of NLM, legal theory and international practice have accepted that transnational business law is open to the 'codification' of its contents. The UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts, the Principles of European Contract Law, and (most recently and dramatically) the TransLex Principles all draw their legal conclusions from observing the real-life phenomena surrounding regional and global integration of markets and foreign direct investment. This new edition presents an advanced elaboration of the author's 'Creeping Codification' thesis based on the TransLex Principles, an Internet-based method using an ongoing, spontaneous, and dynamic codification process which is never completed. The TransLex Principles contain black-letter texts of 128 principles and rules of the NLM with comprehensive, constantly updated comparative law references from domestic statutes, court decisions, doctrine, arbitral awards, and uniform laws. An annex to this book contains a synopsis of the wealth of materials available on the TransLex web site as well as a rare personal account of one of the fathers"of the NLM, Philippe Kahn. International legal practitioners and academics alike have long complained about the inadequate legal framework for international trade and commerce. This book, with its far-reaching theoretical and methodological analysis of the doctrine of an autonomous transnational economic law, clearly opens the way to an independent and workable third legal system alongside domestic law and public international law. It offers international practitioners (contract negotiators, arbitrators, attorneys and other representatives of the parties in international arbitration proceedings) with a powerful and reliable instrument to apply transnational commercial law in daily legal practice. More

International Law for Humankind: Towards a New Jus Gentium  by Antônio Augusto Cançado Trindade (Mague Academy of International Law: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers / Brill Academic) Professor Cançado Trindade develops his Leitmotiv of identification of a corpus juris increasingly oriented to the fulfillment of the needs and aspirations of human beings, of peoples and of humankind as a whole. With the overcoming of the purely inter-State dimension of the discipline of the past, international legal personality has expanded, so as to encompass nowadays, besides States and international organizations, also peoples, individuals and humankind as subjects of International Law. The growing consciousness of the need to pursue universally-shared values has brought about a fundamental change in the outlook of International Law in the last decades, drawing closer attention to its foundations and, parallel to its formal sources, to its material source (the universal juridical conscience). He examines the conceptual constructions of this new International Law and identifies basic considerations of humanity permeating its whole corpus juris, disclosing the current processes of its humanization and universalization. Finally, he addresses the construction of the international rule of law, acknowledging the need and quest for international compulsory jurisdiction, in the move towards a new jus gentium, the International Law for humankind.More

An Introduction to International Human Rights Law edited by Azizur Rahman Chowdhury, Jahid Hossain Bhuiyan (Martinus Nijhoff / Brill Academic) is designed to provide an overview of the development and substance of international human rights law, and what is meant concretely by human rights guarantees, such as civil and political rights, and economic and social rights. It highlights the rights of women, globalization and human rights education. The book also explores domestic, regional and international endeavors to protect human rights. The history and role of human rights NGOs coupled with an analysis of diverse international mechanisms are succinctly woven into the text, which well reflects the scholarship and erudition of the authors. This lucidly written and timely volume will be of great help to anyone seeking to understand this area of law, be they students, lawyers, scholars, government officials, staff of international and non-international organizations, human rights activists or lay readers. More

The Criminal Justice Student Writer's Manual, 5th Edition by William A. Johnson, Jr., Richard P. Rettig, Gregory M. Scott, and Stephen M. Garrison (Pearson Prentice Hall) is designed to help students learn how to research and write in criminal justice and improve their writing skills. The five authors, all of whom are faculty at the University of Central Oklahoma except Richard Retting who is at Easter Oregon University, take a comprehensive approach. The book discusses the writing process, the mechanics of writing, the importance of research and how to cite sources. Now expanded to six parts, this edition includes a new chapter on writing probation and parole reports. Combining both guidelines and samples, it prepares students to write a variety of criminal justice papers, from condensed presentations to complex reports. This edition includes a new writing assignment and covers record keeping, violation reports and pre-sentence investigation reports. More

Nuclear Law: The Law Appling to Nuclear Installations And Radioactive Substances In Its Historic Context 2nd edition by Stephen Tromans (Hart Publishing) This book is a practical guide to the international, EC and UK law applying to the various uses of nuclear energy and radioactive substances. The first edition was produced in 1997, and given the renaissance of interest in nuclear power in the UK and worldwide, this new, updated and much expanded edition is timely. It covers the law relating to the permitting and operation of nuclear power stations, the decommissioning and clean-up of former nuclear facilities, radiological protection, the management of radioactive waste and spent fuel, liability and insurance, and the security and transport of radioactive materials. Readers will find a clear framework explaining the development and application of nuclear law, and how domestic law is based on and influenced by international and European requirements and by its historical context. In the commercial context, the chapters dealing specifically with new build and with decommissioning will be vital reading. More

Human Rights or Religious Rules? by J. A. van der Ven (Empirical Research in Religion and Human Rights: Brill) The relation between religion and human rights is a contested one, as they appear to compete with one another. Religion is often considered to represent a tradition of heteronomy and subordination in premodern times. Human rights emerged from early modern and modern times and stand for principles like human dignity, autonomy, equality. The first question in this book is how to define religion, its meaning, functions and structures, and how to study it. The second question is how to understand religion from its relation with human rights in such a way that justice is done to both religion and human rights. These questions are dealt with using a historical and systematic approach. The third question is what the impact of religion might be On attitudes towards human rights, i.e. human rights culture. For an answer, empirical research is reported among about woo students, Christians, Muslims, and nonreligious, at the end of secondary and the beginning of tertiary education in the Netherlands. More

Juvenile Delinquency: The Core 4th ed. by Larry J. Siegel, Brandon C. Welsh (Wadsworth Publishing) The study of juvenile delinquency is a dynamic, ever-changing field of scientific inquiry in which the theories, concepts, and processes are constantly evolving. We have, as such, updated this text to reflect the changes that have taken place in the study of delinquent behavior during the past few years. This new edition includes a review of recent legal cases, research studies, and policy initiatives. It aims to provide a groundwork for the study of juvenile delinquency by analyzing and describing the nature and extent of delinquency, the suspected causes of delinquent behavior, and the environmental influences on youthful misbehavior. It also covers what most experts believe are the critical issues in juvenile delinquency and analyzes crucial policy issues, including the use of pretrial detention, waiver to adult court, and restorative justice programs. And because we recognize that many students are career oriented, we have included a new feature called Professional Spotlight, which aims at giving students a glimpse of what professionals are now doing to help troubled youth.
Commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) has become a global social problem. CSEC involves youth (aged 17 years old and younger) who engage in the performance of sexual acts in return for a fee, food, drugs, shelter, clothing, gifts, or other goods. The sexual conduct may include any direct sexual contact, such as prostitution, or live or filmed performances (e.g., stripping, pornography) involving sexual acts or for the sexual gratification of others. The United States Department of Justice estimates that as many as 100,000 children are currently involved in prostitution, child pornography, and trafficking, but the true number may be in the millions. More

Police and Human Rights: A Manual for Teachers and Resource Persons and for Participants in Human Rights Programmes  by Ralph Crawshaw (Raoul Wallenberg Institute Professional Guides to Human Rights:Martinus Nijhoff Publishers/Brill Academic) This publication is a human rights teaching manual for teachers and resource persons who are proficient in the craft and profession of policing as practitioners, or learned in that field as educators or academics. It is also a reference manual for police officials participating in programmes based on the manual, and a continuing source of reference for them when they have completed a programme. The teaching manual has been prepared for use as a valuable resource in an educational process which should enable and require police officials to consider how they are to carry out their functions in an effective, lawful and humane manner. Policing is one of the means by and through which governments either meet, or fail to meet, their obligations under international law to protect the human rights of people within the jurisdiction of states they govern.
This manual is offered as a contribution towards the realisable ideal of securing protection and promotion of human rights by and through policing. More

Toward a New Framework for Peaceful Settlement of China's Territorial and Boundary Disputes by Junwu Pan (Brill) This book provides a precious chance to take legal perspectives of China's territorial and boundary disputes against the new background of China's increasingly integrating itself into global economic, political and legal systems. Based on international law and China's new policy, the author examines the possibility of using the third party, which is notably missing in China's international engagement, to settle China's territorial and boundary disputes. This book pinpoints the problems and opportunities China is confronting in its attitude to international law and inter-national courts and tribunals. In the light of international law, especially of norms and principles used by the International Court of Justice and other international courts and tribunals, the author creatively proposes a new framework for settlement of China's territorial and boundary disputes. The author is a promising young scholars specializing in China's territorial and boundary issues. More

The Emerging Practice of the International Criminal Court editied by Carsten Stahn, Goran Sluiter  (Legal Aspects of International Organization: Brill Academic) The International Criminal Court is at a crossroads. In 1998, the Court was still a fiction. A decade later, it has become operational and faces its first challenges as a judicial institution. This volume examines this transition. It analyses the first jurisprudence and policies of the Court. It provides a systematic survey of the emerging law and practice in four main areas: the relationship of the Court to domestic jurisdictions, prosecutorial policy and practice, the treatment of the Court's applicable law and the shaping of its procedure. It revisits major themes, such as jurisdiction, complementarity, cooperation, prosecutorial discretion, modes of liability, pre-trial, trial and appeals procedure and the treatment of victims and witnesses, as well as their criticisms. It also explores some of challenges and potential avenues for future reform. More

Religion, Human Rights and International Law: A Critical Examination of Islamic State Practices Edited by Javaid Rehman, Susan Breau (Studies in Religion, Secular Beliefs and Human Rights: Martinus Nijhoff [Brill])
Excerpt: The first substantive area of analysis in this study is the relationship between religion, human rights and international law and the problems arising from a universally recognised right of freedom of religion. Kevin Boyle provides an excellent beginning to the discussion by an introduction to the international legal background on the freedom of religion.' His chapter fulfils the promise to serve as a reference point for the discussion of practice on freedom of religion elsewhere in the volume, specifically Islamic state practices. The initial problem with the content of freedom of religion is that of the historical and political context in which these human rights standards were negotiated. Whilst originally established during the cold-war period, they now operate in the wholly different environment of the opening decade of the twenty-first Century. Notwithstanding the different historical roots of the standards, Boyle argues that it is imperative that the universal standards on human rights, sustained despite the cold-war are not jettisoned in the crisis generated by the 'global war on terror: International law signifies the commitment of all states to defend freedom of religion as the right of the individual to hold and to practice a faith. The critical point that Boyle makes in his chapter is that human rights law, as a part of the corpus of international law does not place itself at some higher level above religion or non-religious beliefs. Rather, he argues that the purpose of the right to freedom of religion is to accommodate the plurality of such beliefs in the world while drawing its inspiration from the principles of justice and ethics shared by all religions and humanist beliefs. To advance religious freedom and to end religious persecution in this first decade of the twenty-first century, an understanding of that freedom that is inclusive of all religions is urgently needed. The international norms of freedom of conscience, freedom of thought and freedom of religion will remain lifeless until they are invoked as a framework for much needed sustained dialogue and action by the world's religions. More

Sentencing: A Reference Handbook by Dean Champion, Mildred Vasan (Contemporary World Issues: ABC-CLIO) examines the sentencing process in detail. The initial chapter on history and development defines sentencing and its goals. Sentencing is the application of one or more punishments / sanctions following a criminal conviction. These punishments include fines and / or incarceration, or placement under the super­vision of probation officers. The Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 restated a number of sentencing objectives that have guided sentencing judges in their leniency or harshness toward convicted defendants. More

Environmental Justice and the Rights of Unborn and Future Generations: Law, Environmental Harm and the Right to Health by Laura Westra (Earthscan)  The traditional concept of social justice is increasingly being challenged by the notion of a humankind that spans current and future generations. This book, with a foreword by Roger Brownsword, is the first systematic examination of how the rights of the unborn and future generations are handled in common law and under international legal instruments. It provides comprehensive coverage of the arguments over international legal instruments, key legal cases and examples including the Convention on the Rights of the Child, industrial disasters, clean water provision, diet, HIV/AIDS, environmental racism and climate change. Also covered are international agreements and objectives as diverse as the Kyoto Protocol, the Millennium Development Goals and international trade. The result is the most controversial and thorough examination to date of the subject and the enormous ramifications and challenges it poses to every aspect of international and domestic environmental, human rights, trade and public health law and policy. More

Foundations for Social Change: Critical Perspectives on Philanthropy and Popular Movements edited by Daniel R. Faber, Deborah McCarthy (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers) This multi-disciplinary collection blends broad overviews and case studies as well as different theoretical perspectives in a critique of the relationship between United States philanthropic foundations and movements for social change. Scholars and practitioners examine how these foundations support and/or thwart popular social movements and address how philanthropic institutions can be more accountable and democratic in a sophisticated, provocative, and accessible manner. More

The Blackwell Dictionary of Modern Social Thought edited by William Outhwaite (Blackwell Publishing) Modern social thought ranges widely from the social sciences to philosophy, political theories and doctrines, cultural ideas and movements, and the influence of the natural sciences. This dictionary provides an authoritative and comprehensive overview of the main themes of social thought, principal schools and movements of thought and those institutions that have been the subject of social analysis or engendered significant doctrines and ideas.Detailed entries cover major currents of thought, philosophical and cultural trends, and the individual social sciences from anthropology to welfare economics. These are supplemented by shorter accounts of specific concepts and phenomena.This second edition updates about 200 entries and includes new entries on the Internet, ethnic cleansing and other topics. Each entry includes suggestions for further reading, and the volume contains a bibliography of all sources cited within the text. More

Public Intellectuals: An Endangered Species? by Etzioni Amitai (Rights and Responsibilities: Communitarian Responses: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers) investigates the definition, role, and decline of public intellectuals in American society. Drawing from a wide range of commentaries and studies, this edited volume demonstrates the unique importance of public intellectuals and probes the timely question of how their voices can continue to be effective in our ever-changing social, academic and political climates. More

The Social Scientist as Public Intellectual: Critical Reflections in a Changing World by Charles Gattone (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers) addresses the question of the public role of the social scientist by reviewing the work of several key social thinkers, from Max Weber to Pierre Bourdieu. Drawing on the analyses of these scholars, Gattone argues that although political and economic institutions continue to influence the course of academic knowledge, opportunities remain for social scientists to act independently of these constraints, and approach their work as public intellectuals. More

Murdering Myths: The Story Behind the Death Penalty by Judith W. Kay (Polemics: Rowman and Littlefield) (Paperback) goes beyond the hype and statistics to examine Americans' deep-seated beliefs about crime and punishment. She argues that Americans share a counter-productive idea of justice--that punishment corrects bad behavior, suffering pays for wrong deeds, and victims' desire for revenge is natural and inevitable. Drawing on interviews with both victims and inmates, Kay shows how this belief harms perpetrators, victims, and society and calls for a new narrative that recognizes the humanity in all of us. More

Cross-cultural Communication: Perspectives in Theory and Practice by Thomas L. Warren (Baywood) is a collection of essays that examines how practitioners can improve the acceptance of their documentation when communicating to cultures other than their own. The essays begin by examining the cross-cultural issues relating to quality in documentation. From there, the essays look at examples of common documents, analyzing them from several perspectives. Specifically, the author uses communication theories (such as Bernstein's Elaborated and Restricted Code theory and Marwell and Schmidt's Compliance-Gaining theory) to show how documents used by readers who are not native speakers of English can be written and organized to increase their effectiveness. The principal assumption about how practitioners create their documents is that, while large organizations can afford to write, translate, and then localize, small- to medium-size organizations produce many documents that are used directly by people in other cultures-often without translating and localizing. More

Trust, Risk, and Uncertainty edited by Sean Watson, Anthony Moran (Palgrave Macmillan) This edited collection focuses on recently emerging debates around the themes of "risk", "trust", "uncertainty", and "ambivalence." Where much of the work on these themes in the social sciences has been theory based and driven, this book combines theoretical sophistication with close to the ground analysis and research in the fields of philosophy, education, social policy, government, health and social care, politics and cultural studies. More

The New Challenges of Humanitarian Law in Armed Conflicts edited by Pablo Antonio Fernandez-Sanchez (International Humanitarian Law: Martinus Nijhoff) represents an analysis of and a reflection on the new challenges of humanitarian law in armed conflicts. It covers the jurisprudential dimension not only of the International Court of Justice, but also all the different legal bodies, including the ad hoc tribunals created by the United Nations. It analyses the purely doctrinal dimension of general aspects such as the solutions to world disorder in this field, the relationship between jus in bello and jus ad bellum, the principles of universal and international jurisdiction, and the notion of justice and peace. More concrete aspects include the situation of foreigners and journalists in armed conflicts, terrorist acts in terms of international humanitarian law and sexual violence as a war crime. More

Gendered Bodies: Feminist Perspectives by Lisa Jean Moore, Judith Lorber, Alexander M. Holsinger (Roxbury Publishing Company) The human body has been an object of fascination from the begin­ning of the human species, judging from the little prehistoric statues we see in museums. In this book, we explore feminist contributions to contemporary social studies of the human body. We present the ways bodies are constructed in Western society, which is ordered by gender. More

Class Questions: Feminist Answers by Joan Acker (Gender Lens Series: AltaMira Press) (Paperback) Class questions is an urgent task at the beginning of the twenty-first cen­tury as global, national, and local inequalities escalate. Yet conventional conceptualizations of class are inadequate to the task because they illumi­nate the economic experiences of white men more clearly than those of white women or people of color. In this book, Joan Acker sounds the call for a return to questions of class while she deftly articulates a carefully reasoned resolution to the conceptualization problem. Acker proposes that we see class and capitalism as fundamentally gendered and racialized and powerfully shaped in work organizations. More

The Blackwell Companion to Social Inequalities by Mary Romero, Eric Margolis (Blackwell Companions to Sociology: Blackwell Publishing) The discipline of sociology that arose in nineteenth-century Europe was in very large part developed as an inquiry into the persistent inequalities the founders perceived as the Industrial Revolution and the rise of capitalism decimated the medieval world. Marx saw the increasing emiseration of the proletariat and the monopolization of wealth and power in a few hands as the inevitable contradiction of capitalism. Weber's dialogue with Marx's ghost separated class from social status, and power. He also investigated the economic inequalities of Catholic and Protestant societies in his most famous work (Weber 1958 [1906]). Durkeim, though less interested in inequality than in the basis for social solidarity, was also concerned that increasing conflict between capital and labor threatened the social order: "the working classes are not really satisfied with the conditions under which they live, but very often accept them only as constrained and forced, since they have not the means to change them" (1964 [1893]). It is curious, then, that a recent "Dictionary of Sociology," promising definitions for everything from "Anomie to Zeitgeist," has no entry for "inequality" and the only entry for equality defines it as "Equality of Opportunity" (Jary and Jary 1991). This is very much in keeping with the American sociological view that was developed in the (in)famous "debate on equality" that took place in the American Sociological Review, beginning in the 1940s and continuing into the 1960s (Davis 1942, 1953; Davis and Moore 1945; Tumin 1953, 1963; Wrong 1959). In the continuing attempt to refute Marx and demonstrate, as George Homans sanctimoniously quipped, that the proletariat had no intellectual or moral right to demand his money or his life, American sociologists vigorously attempted to reduce the issues of inequality to social stratification; and then they sought to demonstrate the inevitability – in fact, the benefits – of stratification in any advanced technological social system. Every human quality came to be ranked on a scale: income, wealth, intelligence, education level, status, and so on. The individuals' rel­ative position on these different dimensions – and mobility in the great social race – then boiled down to "equality of opportunity," as competitive individuals lined up at the starting blocks. All of this intended to create a science demonstrating that Western democratic capitalist societies had developed into meritocracies, and that the few examples of illegitimate inequality were on their way to being eliminated. More

Resisting Racism And Xenophobia: Global Perspectives on Race, Gender And Human Rights by Faye V. Harrison (AltaMira) (Paperback) excerpt: The concept of globalization is used and abused in a number of different ways, sometimes muddling issues that urgently need to be clarified. Arguing that globalization has a history that goes back centuries, Ted Lewellen under­scores the historical specificity of contemporary globalization. He defines the most current phase or moment of globalization as the increasing flow of trade, finance, culture, ideas, and people brought about by the sophisticated technology of communications and travel and by the worldwide spread of neoliberal capitalism, and it is the local and regional adaptations to and resistance to these flows. More

Criminal Responsibility by Victor Tadros (Oxford Monographs on Criminal Law and Justice: Oxford University Press) considers the proper nature and scope of criminal responsibility in the light of its institutional and political role. Tadros begins by providing a general account of criminal responsibility which is based on the relationship between the action that the defendant has performed and his or her character. He then moves on to reconsider some of the central doctrines of criminal responsibility in the light of that account. More

Defining Crimes: Essays on the Special Part of the Criminal Law edited by R.A. Duff, Stuart Green (Oxford Monographs on Criminal Law and Justice: Oxford University Press) This collection of original essays, by some of the best known contemporary criminal law theorists, tackles a range of issues about the criminal law's 'special part'—the part of the criminal law that defines specific offences. One of its aims is to show the importance, for theory as well as for practice, of focusing on the special part as well as on the general part, which usually receives much more theoretical attention. More

The Suffering of the Immigrant by Abdelmalek Sayad (Polity Press) This work of outstanding originality is a powerful account of the nature of immigration and the condition of the immigrant in our societies today. It represents the synthesis of twenty years' of research on immigration and emigration, two processes that are, by their nature, as inseparable as the two sides of a coin, yet so different in appearance that we are led to believe that one can be understood without reference to the other. By highlighting the intrinsic relationship between these two phenomena, Abdelmalek Sayad - an Algerian sociologist and close associate of Pierre Bourdieu - succeeds in providing a comprehensive and illuminating account of the nature of immigration and the lives of immigrants in the West. More

Immigrants and the American Dream: Remaking the Middle Class by William A. V. Clark (Guilford Press) Text uses statistical data to evaluate who today's immigrants are, where they live, and what levels of success they are achieving in social, economic, and occupational realms. For scholars and students in geography, sociology, planning, and ethnic studies; and policymakers and professionals interested in changing the face of the American middle class. DLC: Immigrants--United States. More

Understanding Social Problems by Linda A. Mooney, David Knox, Caroline Schacht (Wadsworth Publishing) This is a comprehensive mid-level paperback text that takes a theoretically balanced, student-centered approach to social problems. The text progresses from a micro- to macro-level of analysis, focusing first on such problems as illness and health care, drugs and alcohol, and family problems and then broadening to the larger issues of poverty and inequality, population growth, environmental problems, and conflict around the world. The social problem in each chapter is framed in a global as well as U.S. context. In every chapter, the three major theoretical perspectives are applied to the social problem under discussion, and the consequences of the problem, as well as alternative solutions, are explored. Pedagogical features such as The Human Side and Self and Society enable students to grasp how social problems affect the lives of individuals and apply their understanding of social problems to their own lives. More

Theorizing Feminisms: A Reader by Elizabeth Hackett, Sally Haslanger (Oxford University Press) "What is sexist oppression?" "What should be done about it?" Organized around these questions, Theorizing Feminisms: A Reader provides an overview of theoretical feminist writing about the quest for gender justice. Incorporating both classic and cutting-edge material, the reader takes into account the full diversity of women, highlighting the effects of race, ethnicity, nationality, class, sexuality, and religion on women's experience. More

Media and Minorities: The Politics of Race in News and Entertainment by Stephanie Greco Larson (Spectrum Series: Rowman & Littlefield) looks at the media's racial tendencies with an eye to identifying the system supportive messages conveyed and offering challenges to them. The book covers all major media--including television, film, newspapers, radio, magazines, and the Internet--and systematically analyzes their representation of the four largest minority groups in the U.S. African Americans, Native Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans. Entertainment media are compared and contrasted with news media, and special attention is devoted to coverage of social movements for racial justice and politicians of color. More

Listening to the Silences: Women And War edited by Helen Durham, Tracey Gurd (International Humanitarian Law: Brill Academic) Challenging the perception that women are exclusively the victims, the caregivers or the passive supporters of men in times of armed conflict, Listening to the Silences: Women and War exposes the reader to a diversity of women’s voices. These voices, both personal and academic, demonstrate that women are increasingly taking on less ‘traditional’ roles during war, and that these roles are multifaceted, complicated and sometimes contradictory. More

Accountability of Peace Support Operations by Marten Zwanenburg (International Humanitarian Law: Springer) Quis custodiet ipsos custodies? In other words, who guards the guardians? At a time when the mandate of many peace support operations includes halting violations of international humanitarian law by third parties, there is still a lack of clarity concerning accountability of peace support operations themselves. This book addresses that accountability, focusing on peace support operations under the command and control of the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It is concerned with the accountability of international organizations as well as troops contributing and member states, but not of individuals. More

Handbook Of Archaeological Methods edited by Herbert D. G. Maschner, Christopher Chippindale (Altamira Press) comprises 37 articles by leading archaeologists on the key methods used by archaeologists in the field, in analysis, in theory building, and in managing cultural resources. The book is destined to become the key reference work for archaeologists and their advanced students on contemporary archaeological methods. More

Archaeology In Practice: A Student Guide To Archaeological Analyses by Jane Balme, Alistair Paterson (Blackwell Publishing Professional) (Paperback) This volume is intended for archaeology students who are learning how to analyze archaeological materials. For many years, we have been involved in teaching university courses in field and laboratory techniques in archaeology. Over a cup of coffee during one of these courses, we were bemoaning the fact that, although there are many books on field methods (especially excavation techniques), much less is available on archaeological analysis techniques beyond the introductory first-year archaeology level. What we wanted was a series of essays that showed students how different kinds of archaeological materials are used to answer research questions. In our experience, students are more likely to understand this link when they learn from archaeologists who are talking about their own research problems and how they solved them. It brings a sense of immediacy to the work that makes it much more fun for them to read. Thus, to remedy the problem of the lack of such materials for students to read, we decided to assemble a collection of essays by experts on archaeological analysis. More

Free Will, Consciousness and Self: Anthropological Perspectives on Psychology by Preben Bertelsen (Studies in the Understanding of the Human Condition: Berghahn Books) What is it to be human? How do we relate to the world, to each other and to our selves—in everyday life and when faced with life's big questions?
In this book, the author develops a general theoretical model that may offer a better understanding of underlying principles of human behavior. The author shows that general psychology can make a significant contribution to a general anthropology and the human condition. More

Fads and Fallacies in the Social Sciences by Steven Goldberg (Humanity Books) Steven Goldberg has devoted his career to exposing fallacious reasoning, misrepresented fact, and ideological agendas in the social sciences. His scholarly critiques offer alternative, and sometimes controversial, explanations that are notable for their logical integrity and loyalty to empirical reality. Best known for his work in the physiological roots of sex differences, he has also written on a myriad of other subjects, which, as he bluntly states, "are as fallaciously reasoned in professional journals as in the cocktail party conversations that naively repeat the errors first propounded in those journals."

In this new collection of essays he is as lively, interesting, and provocative as ever. In addition to lambasting the fallacies infusing the received wisdom on many issues, he also directly addresses the factors and motivations that  contemporary surrender of the social sciences to the forces of antiscientific ideologies, which subordinate logic and evidence to wish fulfillment and political goals.

Among the subjects addressed are the validity of intelligence tests, group differences, the death penalty, sex differences in aggression and cognition, the family, abortion, and the nature of modern society. Also included are a couple of polemics, observations on the O. J. Simpson trial, and a moving encomium to his hero, Jackie Robinson.

Goldberg's work has been praised by reviewers as "persuasive and accurate" (Margaret Mead), "coolly, tightly, even brilliantly reasoned" (Morton Kaplan), and "the most significant...on the subject in decades" (Murray Rothbard). Readers who appreciate razor-sharp rigor and logical elegance will be richly rewarded by these essays on many of the most hotly contested issues of the social sciences.

The purpose of science—be it physical, natural, or social—is to find out how the world works. Its justification is its ability to satisfy curiosity, just as the justification of music is its ability to enable us to expe­rience beauty. When we learn how stars are born and die we greatly increase our understanding of the world—satisfy our curiosity—even though so doing does not enable us to create or destroy stars.

To be sure, one hopes also that science will do more than satisfy our curiosity and will make the world a better place in additional ways. And, to be sure, science—or at least technology based on science—can on occasion make the world a worse, indeed a horrible, place.

But it is the faith of science that truth is always better than untruth. Like all faith, this faith is rooted in an assumption that cannot be demonstrated to be true and is occasionally attached to events whose concordance with the assumption is dubious. (lt is not yet clear that the discovery of the laws permitting atomic power have made the world a better place, though that discovery unquestionably increased our understanding of the world—satis­fied our curiosity—more than did any other.)

What is without doubt true, however, is that by any measure we are, in general, better off trusting truth than denying it. Denial of truth festers, setting our innate curiosity against our wishes and forcing us to endure the painful conflict between what we sense to be true and what we wish were true.

That we experience the wish speaks well of us and makes more likely our putting the truth we find to good use. But when wish is given priority over truth—when political ideology begins to determine what we shall con­sider true—science is wounded, and the world is likely to become a worse place.

In the physical sciences of the last five centuries this has not been much of a problem. The natural sciences occasionally encounter a Lysenko, but, by and large, they proceed apace to increase truth.

In principle, the same should be true of the social sciences. While the social sciences encounter numerous practical problems that do not face the physical and natural sciences, the logic of validation in the social sciences is identical to that of the other sciences.

But you wouldn't know this from social science as it is, by and large, practiced today. This book is concerned primarily with issues in sociology, and while there is no doubt some good work being done in each of the social sciences, the general state of attempts to understand human behavior has degenerated to the point that it is far from clear that we are better off for their existence.

There are a number of reasons for this, but primary is the massive infu­sion of political ideology into the social sciences. Nearly all of the essays included here concern issues for which ideological desire has replaced curiosity as the prime mover. I am concerned in this book not with why this has happened, but with demonstration that, at least with reference to the issues discussed, it has.

Likewise, in these essays I attempt to persuade the reader not so much that a particular explanation of the issue is correct as that the explanation accepted as virtual received wisdom in the social sciences does not pass the first test of any explanation.

Any explanation that we wish to take seriously must be both logical and in accord with nature. If it is not logical, if it contains fallacy, we need not go further. An illogical "explanation" is not an explanation.

The reader may well assume that accepted explanations in the social sciences are, at least, logical. It is natural to do so if one is not aware of the extent to which ideological desire has trumped not merely method, but common sense itself.

There is, for example, nothing wrong with wishing that all human groups—and both sexes—start out the same, that the death penalty does not deter, that different scores on tests of academic aptitude do not reflect any innate differences, or any other received conclusions examined in the essays. There is something wrong with accepting fallacious explanations concluding that these things are true.

The fact that the explanations are fallacious does not, of course, demonstrate that the conclusions are necessarily false. But it does preclude the possibility that the explanations give us any reason to believe that the

conclusions are true and does point the way toward our arriving at the cor­rect conclusions, whatever they might be.

With the exception of a few of essays l include simply because l like them and hope the reader will, all of these essays examine issues that are crucial, and of interest and importance to the general intelligent reader as well as the professional social scientist.

If I succeed, the reader who has sensed that a number of commonly accepted explanations are dubious, but who could not put a finger on precisely what was wrong with them, will experience a number of "I knew there was something wrong with that" experiences.

Sociology and Society is a series of four textbooks designed as an introduction to the sociological study of modern society. The books form the core study materials for The Open University course Sociology and Society (DD201), which aims to provide an attractive and up‑to‑date introduction to the key concerns and debates of contemporary sociology. They also take account of the ways in which sociology has been shaped by dialogue with adjacent disciplines and intellectual movements, such as cultural studies and women's studies. More

Social Workers' Desk Reference edited by Albert R. Roberts, Gilbert J. Greene (Oxford University Press) This is by far the best survey of social work standards and practices to cross my desk in years. It is an all-encompassing and well thought-out compendium that the broad range of social work practices, ethics and central theory is at hand. Rumor has it that it is already becoming the essential reference to social work because each of its 146 chapters is assessable and consistently well-written, all by acknowledged scholars in the field.. Social Workers' Desk Reference is a definitely  an outstanding and sourcebook for social work practitioners and academics. More

Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drugs: Challenging Myths, Assessing Theories, Individualizing Interventions by Ann Augustine Abbott (NASW Press) reflects the clinical experiences and scholarly research of the original faculty fellows, together with that of numerous other faculty members, social work practitioners, professionals from other fields, and students who struggled together to better understand the complexities of the field of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs. More

Refugee Manipulation: War, Politics, and the Abuse of Human Suffering edited by Stephen John Stedman, Fred Tanner (Brookings Institution Press) This disturbing new book focuses on the conditions of civil war, when armed forces exploit refugee aid and the good faith efforts of international organizations. Warring factions treat aid camps as recruitment pools and camps can become safe havens for significant numbers of "refugee warriors"- those who have participated in genocide and intend to return to conflict. Many refugee organizations hence face a difficult dilemma of differentiating between victim and aggressor. More

Forging Peace: Intervention, Human Rights and the Management of Media Space edited by Mark Thompson, Monroe Edwin Price (Indiana University Press) (PAPERBACK) Early in October 2001, a United States missile strike disabled the Taliban regime's radio station in Kabul . Shortly afterwards, the US commenced psyops from an aerial radio station circling overhead. `Noble people of Afghanistan, the forces of the United States are passing through your area. More

Statehood and the Law of Self-Determination by David Raic (Developments in International Law, Vol. 43: Kluwer Academic Publishers) The striving of communities for statehood is, of course, an old phenome­non. For instance, against the background of nationalism, the Versailles peace settlement led to the rebirth of numerous States in Europe. To that effect, Butler observes, the Versailles Treaties have been described as the "balkan­ization of Europe"! But there were others, apart from the nationalities who were allowed to establish their own State, who favored the peace settlement and considered it right and inevitable.; Whether or not one agrees with this conclusion, the same forces of national feeling have certainly not ceased to operate, nor have they become weaker in the course of the twentieth and twenty-first century. Indeed, to speak with Cobban, "we may approve them, or we may condemn them, but we cannot ignore them". For an international lawyer at least, the challenge is thus to find out whether international law contains rules and principles regulating these forces and their outcomes. More

Creating the American Mind: Intellect and Politics in the Colonial Colleges by J. David Hoeveler (Rowman & Littlefield) Nine colleges of colonial America confronted the major political currents of the sev­enteenth and eighteenth centuries, while serving as the primary intellectual institutions for Puritanism and the transition to Enlightenment thought. The colleges also dealt with the most partisan and divisive cultural movement of the eighteenth century -the Great Awakening. More

In Light of Our Differences: How Diversity in Nature and Culture Makes Us Human by David Harmon (Smithsonian) Most scientists would agree that a sixth mass extinction is on the horizon unless radical changes are made in how Western society treats nature. At the same time, another extinction crisis is unfolding: the loss of many of the world's languages. More and more work in applied biology, anthropology, linguistics, and other related fields is now driven by the assumption that we are approaching a threshold of irreversible loss, that events during the next few decades will decide whether we cross over into a fundamentally changed and significantly diminished world. This leads to a very simple question that has not, until now, been answered satisfactorily: Why should anyone care? Harmon takes a unique approach to answering this essential question by drawing on insights from conservation biology, evolutionary theory, linguistics, geography, psychology, philosophy, and ethics. His interconnected discussion explores the works of Voltaire, A.O. Lovejoy, Darwin, Wittgenstein, William James, Dobzhansky, and many others to explain why everyone must be concerned about the loss of diversity. When more and more elemental differences are erased from the natural world and human societies, the field of possible experience becomes more constricted and our essential humanity becomes jeopardized. The very reason our planet can be said to be alive is because an amazing variety of organisms, streams of human thought and behavior, and geophysical features exist that provide a congenial setting for the interworkings of nature and culture. Harmon's timely, important book elucidates how as we lose diversity, we risk losing ourselves. More