Legal Writing and Research Commons^™

An Appeal To Books, Amir H. Ali

Michigan Law Review

This feels a fit, even urgent, moment to celebrate our books and the role they play vis-à-vis the law, the courts, and the truth.

As this issue goes to print, our nation’s highest court faces forceful criticism that some of its most significant decisions have been detached from objective fact. In recent Terms, the Supreme Court’s majority has doubled down on deciding major constitutional questions based on “history and tradition”—that is, the majority’s understanding of what the nation was like centuries ago. Just as quickly as these justices praised the objectivity of their fealty to history, they met widespread rebuke …

Beyond “Big Government”: Toward New Legal Histories Of The New Deal Order’S End, Gabriel L. Levine

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Public Citizens: The Attack on Big Government and the Remaking of American Liberalism. By Paul Sabin.

Akhil Amar’S Unusable Past, Gregory Ablavsky

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Words That Made Us: America’s Constitutional Conversation, 1760–1840. By Akhil Reed Amar.

Policing Queer Sexuality, Ari Ezra Waldman

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Vice Patrol: Cops, Courts, and the Struggle over Urban Gay Life Before Stonewall. By Anna Lvovsky.

The Case Of The Dishonest Scrivener: Gouverneur Morris And The Creation Of The Federalist Constitution, William Michael Treanor

Michigan Law Review

At the end of the Constitutional Convention, the delegates appointed the Committee of Style and Arrangement to bring together the textual provisions that the Convention had previously agreed to and to prepare a final constitution. Pennsylvania delegate Gouverneur Morris drafted the document for the Committee, and, with few revisions and little debate, the Convention adopted Morris’s draft. For more than two hundred years, questions have been raised as to whether Morris covertly altered the text in order to advance his constitutional vision, but modern legal scholars and historians studying the Convention have either ignored the issue or concluded that Morris …

The Price Of Conflict: War, Taxes, And The Politics Of Fiscal Citizenship, Ajay K. Mehrotra

Michigan Law Review

This Review proceeds in four parts, paralleling the chronological organization of War and Taxes. It focuses mainly on the book's analysis of the leading modern American wars, from the Civil War through the global conflicts of the twentieth century, up to the recent war on terror. Part I contrasts the tax policies of the Union and Confederacy during the Civil War to show how the Lincoln Administration was able to overcome Yankee resistance to wartime tax hikes to wage a war against a Southern Confederacy that resolutely resisted any type of centralized taxation until, of course, it was too late. …

The Vitality Of The American Sovereign, Todd E. Pettys

Michigan Law Review

The proposition that "the people" are the preeminent sovereign in the United States has long been a tenet of American public life. The authors of the Declaration of Independence characterized the American people's sovereignty as a "self-evident" truth when announcing the colonies' decision to sever their ties with Great Britain, the delegates to the Philadelphia Convention in 1787 invoked the people's sovereignty when framing the nation's Constitution, and Americans today exercise their sovereignty each time they cast their ballots on Election Day. Yet what prerogatives, precisely, does the people's sovereignty entail? In modern America, where neither a bloody revolution nor …

The Folklore Of Legal Biography, Mark Fenster

Michigan Law Review

Spencer Weber Waller's Thurman Arnold: A Biography faces the problem of making this life stand out, and this Review seeks both to evaluate his rendering-which it does in Part II, after providing more details of the raw materials of Arnold's life in Part I-and to use Arnold's ideas to reflect on the endeavor of the legal biography. Although other works bearing on Arnold's life have been available,' Waller's competent, readable chronicle will provide an authoritative source of information and satisfy the desires of general readers interested in accomplished legal lives and seeking a straightforward account of Arnold's career. But Waller's …

Pleas' Progress, Stephanos Bibas

Michigan Law Review

George Fisher's new book, Plea Bargaining's Triumph, is really three books in one. The first part is a careful, detailed explanation of how and why plea bargaining exploded in Middlesex County, Massachusetts in the nineteenth century. This part is the fruit of an impressive amount of original research in Massachusetts court records and newspaper archives. The second part of the book looks more broadly at other academic histories of plea bargaining in England, California, and New York. It explains how the forces that produced plea bargaining in Middlesex County likewise contributed to plea bargaining's rise elsewhere. The final part …

Foreign Affairs: Presidential Initiative And Congressional Control, David P. Currie

Michigan Law Review

Jefferson Powell is one of our foremost scholars of constitutional history. He is particularly adept at bringing extrajudicial sources to bear on constitutional issues. Owing perhaps in part to his extensive service in the Department of Justice, he has a special facility for the use of executive materials; he is surely our leading academic expert on executive interpretation of the Constitution. In his latest book Professor Powell applies his enviable skills to the recurring, fundamental, and controversial question of the division of authority between the President and Congress in the realm of foreign affairs. As is always the case when …

Legal Orientalism, Teemu Ruskola

Michigan Law Review

Fifty years ago comparative law was a field in search of a paradigm. In the inaugural issue of the American Journal of Comparative Law in 1952, Myres McDougal remarked unhappily, "The greatest confusion continues to prevail about what is being compared, about the purposes of comparison, and about appropriate techniques." In short, there seemed to be very little in the field that was not in a state of confusion. Two decades later, referring to McDougal's bleak assessment, John Merryman saw no evidence of progress: "few comparative lawyers would suggest that matters have since improved." And only a few years ago, …

Truth And Interpretation In Legal History, G. Edward White

Michigan Law Review

The essay consists of four sections. Section I discusses the nature of historical explanation, devoting some attention to the roles of "truth," interpretation, and detachment in historical scholarship. Section II continues that discussion by exploring the meaning and the purpose of what I call "interpretive detachment" in the writing of history. Section III considers the theoretical assumptions of Marxist legal historians from the point of view developed in preceding sections. Section IV, taking into account some issues that remain problematic or troublesome, restates my approach.

Wainhouse: International Peace Observation-A History And Forecast, D. V. Sandifer

Michigan Law Review

A Review of International Peace Observation-a History and Forecast By David W. Wainhouse in association with Bernhard G. Bechhoefer, John C. Dreier, Benjamin Gerig and Harry R. Turkel.

Valentine: The Court Of Justice Of The European Communities, Werner Feld

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Court of Justice of the European Communities 2 vols. By D. G. Valentine

Brown: British Statutes In American Law 1776-1836, William F. Swindler

Michigan Law Review

A Review of British Statutes in American Law 1776-1836. By Elizabeth Gaspar Brown

Graves: American Intergovernmental Relations: Their Origins, Historical Development, And Current Status, Joseph E. Kallenbach

Michigan Law Review

A Review of American Intergovernmental Relations: Their Origins, Historical Development, and Current Status. By W. Brooke Graves.

Mellinkoff: The Language Of The Law, Ronald L. Goldfarb

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Language of the Law. By David Mellinkoff

Paul & Schwartz: Federal Censorship: Obscenity In The Mail, Harry Kalven Jr.

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Federal Censorship: Obscenity in the Mail. By James C. N. Paul and Murray L. Schwartz.

Frank: Lincoln As A Lawyer, Spencer L. Kimball

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Lincoln As A Lawyer By John P. Frank

Hurst: Law And Social Process In United States History, Robert S. Hunt

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Law and Social Process in United States History. By James Willard Hurst.

Murphy: Congress And The Court, Robert B. Mckay

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Congress and the Court. By Walter F. Murphy

Simpson: An Introduction To The History Of The Land Law, Daniel M. Schuyler

Michigan Law Review

A Review of AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF THE LAND LAW. By A. W. B. Simpson.

Sullivan: Conservation Of Oil And Gas. A Legal History - 1958, Joseph R. Julin

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Conservation of Oil and Gas. A Legal History - 1958. Edited by Robert E. Sullivan.

Stein & Nicholson: American Enterprise In The European Common Market: A Legal Profile. Vol. Ii, Sigmund Timberg

Michigan Law Review

A Review of American Enterprise in the European Common Market: A Legal Profile. Vol. II. Volume Two. Edited by Eric Stein and Thomas L. Nicholson.

Dawson: A History Of Lay Judges, Spencer L. Kimball

Michigan Law Review

A Review of A History of Lay Judges . By John P. Dawson

Self-Determination Vs. Stability Of Labor Relations: The Effect Of American Potash, Dallas L. Jones

Michigan Law Review

Very early in its history, the Board was confronted with conflicting claims by craft unions and industrial unions for the right to represent craft workers. Generally, the industrial unions sought a broad unit of production and craft workers, whereas the craft unions sought units of their particular skill. The Board's first reaction was to establish broad units where it appeared that one union had a majority throughout the plant. In doing so, the Board relied heavily upon what it considered best for collective bargaining purposes. In many cases, the Board created large units over the protests of small groups on …

Taggart: Cost Justification, Harry L. Shniderman

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Cost Justification. By Herbert F. Taggart

Brown: Legal Education At Michigan. 1859-1959, Louis Quarles

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Legal Education at Michigan. 1859-1959. By Elizabeth Gaspar Brown, in consultation with William Wirt Blume

Hunt: Law And Locomotives: The Impact Of The Railroad On Wisconsin Law In The Nineteenth Century, Alan N. Polasky

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Law and Locomotives: The Impact of the Railroad on Wisconsin Law in the Nineteenth Century. By Robert S. Hunt.

Trial Of Legal Issues In Injunction Against Tort, Edgar N. Durfee

Michigan Law Review

This essay appeared in a casebook on Equitable Remedies that was used for years in mimeographed form at the University of Michigan Law School. It was never prepared for final publication by Professor Durfee himself, but the numerous changes made in his own personal copy indicate that he had given much thought to the subject. Professor John P. Dawson who had collaborated with Professor Durfee has incorporated these changes in the present text. More changes might have been made by Professor Durfee if he had planned to publish it. The editors believe that as it stands it deserves a wider …