This collection surveys the literature relevant to law and anthropology. It also brings together attempts by western scholars to understand non-western forms of jurisprudence in their own terms, and illustrates diverse non-western approaches to law.

We often hear about the growing divide between rich and poor in America. This compelling expose, backed by up-to-date research, locates the source of this trend where we might least expect to find it - in our schools. Written for a wide audience, "Tearing Down the Gates" is a powerful indictment of American education that shows how schools, colleges, and universities exacerbate inequality by providing ample opportunities for advantaged students while shutting the gates on the poor - and even the middle class. Peter Sacks tells the stories of young people and families as they struggle to negotiate the educational system. He introduces students like Ashlea, who grew up in a trailer park and who would like to attend college, though she faces constant obstacles that many of her more privileged classmates can't imagine. Woven throughout with voices of Americans both rich and poor, "Tearing Down the Gates" describes a disturbing situation that has the potential to undermine the American dream, not just for some, but for all of us. At the heart of this book is a question of justice, and Sacks demands that we take a hard look at what equal opportunity really means in the United States today.

This text is an examination of the ways in which standardized tests sustain the privileged and punish the poor, complete with a plan for meaningful change in schools and in the workplace. We've been told time and time again that standardized tests aren't perfect but that they're the best tool we have for gauging aptitude and achievement. Is this really true? What are the flaws of such testing? Why is your father's occupation a better predictor of SAT scores than virtually any other factor? And, most important, what can we do to hold one another accountable to standards at all levels of schools and in the workplace? Standardized Minds shows how an unhealthy and enduring obsession with intelligence testing affects us all, from the day we enter kindergarten to the day we apply for that corporate job. Drawing creative solutions from the headlines and the frontlines, Sacks demonstrates proven alternatives to such testing and details a plan to make the American meritocracy legitimate and fair.

"Sacks brings a uniquely compassionate heart and an enduring poetic genius to all that he has to say."—Robert Creeley

Peter Sacks traverses morally charged landscapes in poems reminiscent of Rilke and Celan. Through the lens of Peter Sacks's actual journey from a strife-torn South Africa to a haunted and spiritually frayed America, Necessity travels from remembered heights unblemished by time's weight, through deserts laden by the debris of our mad dreams—progress, conquest, salvation—to arrive at the waters of communal memory, values, and love.

"A masterful book."—Los Angeles Times Book Review