Legal History

Law has played a central role in American history. From colonial times to the present, law has not just reflected the changing society in which legal decisions have been made - it has played a powerful role in shaping that society, though not always in positive ways. Eminent legal scholar G. Edward White offers a compact overview that sheds light on the impact of law on a number of key social issues. 

An incisive and comprehensive view of India’s legal process and its key issuesIndia has the second-largest legal profession in the world, but the systemic delays and chronic impediments of its judicial system inspire little confidence in the common person. In India’s Legal System, renowned...

With the incisiveness and lucid style for which he is renowned, Ronald Dworkin has written a masterful explanation of how the Anglo-American legal system works and on what principles it is grounded. Law’s Empire is a full-length presentation of his theory of law that will be studied and...

A forensic history of the missing and murdered Indigenous women and Two-Spirit people crisis that unmasks the Americas’ oldest and most relentless crime: Native genocide “A phenomenal contribution to our understanding of the ongoing violence throughout the Americas against [MMIW2S].” —...

As government offices, corporations, and campuses dismantle Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs amid intensifying political backlash, a new book from Yale University Press argues that public debate has lost sight of DEI’s origins. In The Diversity Principle: The Story of a Transformative Idea, Berkeley Law Professor David B. Oppenheimer reconstructs the two-century history of diversity as an intellectual and institutional principle, one rooted in the origins of the modern research university, the development of free speech doctrine, and the science of decision making.

Racial hatred is one of the ugliest of human emotions. And the United States not only once condoned it, it also mandated it?wove it right into the fabric of American jurisprudence. Federal and state governments legally suspended the free will of blacks for 150 years and then denied blacks equal...

In the second thrilling novel in New York Times bestselling author Lisa Scottoline’s Rosato & Associates series, a successful lawyer now finds herself on the opposite side of the bench when she’s framed for murder. Benedetta “Bennie” Rosato is a maverick lawyer who prosecutes police...

Originalism Is Not Enough The Founding Fathers held certain truths to be "self-evident." Do we? In this profoundly important reassessment of constitutional interpretation, the eminent legal philosopher Hadley Arkes argues that "originalism" alone is an inadequate answer to the judicial activism...

Discover the gripping legal history and fierce political struggles that forged modern Canadian rights and Indigenous law. Long before European empires imposed their colonial rule, sophisticated Indigenous legal traditions already governed kinship, diplomacy, and the land. Witness the dramatic...

The first full life—private, public, legal, philosophical—of the 107th Supreme Court Justice, one of the most profound and profoundly transformative legal minds of our time; a book fifteen years in work, written with the cooperation of Ruth Bader Ginsburg herself and based on many interviews...

Diane Johnson returns with another expatriate comedy of manners in this tale of a young dot-com executive from California who sets off for Europe to find culture, her roots, and maybe a cause to devote her considerable fortune to. When Amy checks into one of the finest small hotels in the French...

People on the right are furious. People on the left are livid. And the center isn’t holding. There is only one thing on which almost everyone agrees: there is something very wrong in Washington. The country is being run by pollsters. Few politicians are able to win the voters’ trust. Blame...

The definitive reckoning with Affirmative Action, one of America’s most explosively contentious and divisive issues—from “one of our most important and perceptive writers on race and the law.”—The Washington Post “A clear-eyed take on America’s battle over affirmative action and...

An urgent and gripping look at the erosion of voting rights and its implications for democracy, told through the stories of 9 Supreme Court decisions—and the next looming case In The Court v. The Voters, law professor Joshua Douglas takes us behind the scenes of significant cases in voting...

The author of The Pocket Wife explores the dark side of love, marriage, and infidelity in this sizzling novel of psychological suspense. Everybody’s luck runs out. This time it could be theirs . . . It isn’t safe. That’s what Joe tells her when he ends their affair—moments before their...

'An indelible and enthralling work of moral witness' PATRICK RADDEN KEEFE 'These questions of memory and impunity are forever timely' FINANCIAL TIMES 'An extraordinary achievement . . . I read with open mouth and thumping heart' STEPHEN FRY The house at 38 Londres Street in Santiago, Chile, is...

Amy Hawkins, a young dot-com executive from California who has made her fortune at the top of NASDAQ, sets off for Europe to find culture, her roots, and maybe a cause to devote her considerable fortune to. Amy starts her quest at one of the finest small hotels in the French Alps--a hotel noted...

Morgan Siler is one of Washington, D.C.'s most powerful K Street law firms, its roster of clients stocked with multibillion-dollar corporations. The obsessive efforts of its senior partner, Peter Morgan, have transformed it from an old-fashioned business into a veritable Goliath. As Peter...

People on the right are furious. People on the left are livid. And the center isn’t holding. There is only one thing on which almost everyone agrees: there is something very wrong in Washington. The country is being run by pollsters. Few politicians are able to win the voters’ trust. Blame...

The gripping story of one American lawyer’s obsessive crusade—waged at any cost—against Big Oil on behalf of the poor farmers and indigenous tribes of the Amazon rainforest. Steven Donziger, a self-styled social activist and Harvard educated lawyer, signed on to a budding class action...