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I Hear A Rhapsody: A Reading Of The Republic Of Choice, Donald J. Herzog

Reviews

Readers coming to another volume by Lawrence Friedman might well expect a tightly crafted legal history. But this book is quite different. It offers a sweeping account of the transformation of modern law, a synoptic overview of what is finally distinctive about our legal culture, even a broadbrushed portrait of Western individualism. It does so breathlessly, in prose style and velocity. It's sometimes an engaging read, sometimes a distressing one, but-and here's what really matters-never a persuasive one. Or, worse yet, when it is persuasive it's because of its poetic and ideological features, not any kind of rigorous analysis.

Legal Images Of Battered Women: Redefining The Issue Of Separation, Martha R. Mahoney

Michigan Law Review

Part I of this article discusses violence in the ordinary lives of women, describing individual and societal denial that pretends domestic violence is rare when statistics show it is common, and describing the ways in which motherhood shapes women's experience of violence and choices in response to violence. Part II examines definitions of battering and evaluates their effectiveness at disguising or revealing the struggle for control at the heart of the battering process. I then describe in Part III the pressures that self-defense and custody cases place on legal and cultural images of battered women and contrast the development of …

Shame, Culture, And American Criminal Law, Toni M. Massaro

Michigan Law Review

The purpose of this Article is to analyze whether this link is one that American criminal court judges can, or should, exploit. I begin with a description of the new shaming sanctions and the possible justifications for this type of penalty. I then identify both psychological and anthropological aspects of the phenomenon of shame, or "losing face." I describe several cultures in which shaming practices are, or were, significant means of sanctioning behavior, and outline the shared features of these cultures.

These psychological and anthropological materials, taken together, suggest that shaming practices are most effective and meaningful when five conditions …

Harmony, Law, And Anthropology, Daniel H. Levine

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Harmony Ideology: Justice and Control in a Zapotec Mountain Village by Laura Nader

The Substance Of Equality, Jeremy Waldron

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Speaking of Equality: An Analysis of the Rhetorical Force of "Equality" in Moral and Legal Discourse by Peter Westen

Abortion And The Law: A Problem Without A Solution?, Robert F. Drinan S.J.

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Abortion: The Clash of Absolutes by Laurence H. Tribe

The Meaning Of Dissent, Lee C. Bollinger

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The First Amendment, Democracy, and Romance by Steven H. Shiffrin

Understanding Legal Compliance, V. Lee Hamilton

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Why People Obey the Law by Tom R. Tyler

Affirmative Action As A Majoritarian Device: Or, Do You Really Want To Be A Role Model?, Richard Delgado

Michigan Law Review

Have you ever noticed how affirmative action occupies a place in our system of law and politics far out of proportion to its effects in the real world? Liberals love talking about and sitting on committees that define, oversee, defend, and give shape to it. Conservatives are attached to the concept for different reasons: they can rail against it, declare it lacking in virtue and principle, and use it to rally the troops. Affirmative action is something they love to hate. The program also generates a great deal of paper, conversation, and jobs probably more of the latter for persons …

The Moral Responsibilities Of Universities, Terrance Sandalow

Book Chapters

IN THE YEARS SINCE the Second World War, "higher education" has emerged as one of the major influences in American life. Well over 50 percent of the age cohort now in its teens or early twenties will attend a college or university, more than a five-fold increase from the prewar period. Moreover, colleges and universities now engage in so broad a range of activities that the appellation "higher education" no longer seems entirely appropriate to describe the institutions. Community colleges, but also four-year colleges and universities, play a major role in training individuals for skilled and semiskilled occupations. Universities are …

Debts, Job Choices, And Financial Burden: Educational Debts At Nine American Law Schools, David L. Chambers

Books

American law students are borrowing large sums of money. For graduates at many schools, cumulative debts of $35,000 from college and law school have become the norm and debts of $40,000, $50,000 and even more are common. The sums students are borrowing are much larger today than they were ten years ago, even after adjusting for increases in the cost of living. They have risen at a vastly faster pace than the initial salaries at small law firms and government agencies. They have even risen at a faster pace than the initial salaries in many large firms. The new pattern …

The Multiple-Marriage Society And Spousal Rights Under The Revised Uniform Probate Code, Lawrence W. Waggoner

Articles

Nearly everyone knows about the transformation of the American family that has taken place over the last couple of decades. The changes, from the latter half of the 1970s into the present, comprise one of the great events of our age. Articles on one aspect or another of the phenomenon frequent the popular press, and a special edition of Newsweek was recently devoted to the topic.' The traditional "Leave It To Beaver" family no longer prevails in American society. To be sure, families consisting of a wage-earning husband, a homemaking and child-rearing wife, and their two joint children still exist. …

Commentary: Meeting The Financial Needs Of Children, David L. Chambers

Articles

Those who drafted the equitable distribution statutes adopted in New York and elsewhere wanted to help assure women and children an acceptable level of financial well-being after divorce. Marsha Garrison has shown that divorcing couples rarely possess enough resources to attain financial well-being even when they live together as a couple, let alone when they live in two separate households. She has also shown that, even in the cases of couples with substantial assets, the broad and general language of the equitable distribution statute did not lead (and could not have been expected to lead) to consistent distributions that assured …

Curtailing Inherited Wealth, Mark L. Ascher

Michigan Law Review

One of the most dominant themes in American ideology is equality of opportunity. In our society, ability and willingness to work hard are supposed to make all things possible. But we know there are flaws in our ideology. Differences in native ability unquestionably exist. Similarly, some people seem to have distinctly more than their fair share of good luck. Both types of differences are, however, beyond our control. So we try to convince ourselves that education evens out most differences. Still, we know there are immense differences in the values various parents imbue in their children. And we also know …

The Ethics Of The "Unprofessional Profession", Gerald Caplan

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Character and Cops: Ethics in Policing by Edwin J. Delattre

Crimes Of Obedience: Toward Social Psychology Of Authority And Responsibility, Michael Kenneth Isenman

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Crimes of Obedience: Toward Social Psychology of Authority and Responsibility by Herbert C. Kelman and V. Lee Hamilton

The Law's Secrets, Gary T. Marx

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Legal Secrets: Equality and Efficiency in the Common Law by Kim Lane Scheppele

Meanness As Racial Ideology, Derrick Bell

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Port Chicago Mutiny: The Story of the Largest Mutiny Trial in U.S. History by Robert L. Allen

Happy Slaves: A Critique Of Consent Theory, Adam C. Sloane

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Happy Slaves: A Critique of Consent Theory by Don Herzog

Family Traits, Inga Markovits

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Transformation of Family Law: State, Law and Family in the United States and Western Europe