"Digital technologies have given society an extraordinary cultural potential. If that potential is to be made real, we must reconcile it with the legitimate and important claims of copyright. In this beautifully written and careful work, Fisher, more completely than anyone else, maps the choices that we might make. He argues for a choice that would produce enormous social good. And while not everyone will agree with the conclusions he draws, no one who cares seriously about creators or culture can ignore the framework that he has set. There are choices that we as a society must make. And as Rawls did in political theory, or Milton Friedman did in economics, Fisher provides an understanding that will color policy analysis for the generations to come."--Lawrence Lessig, Stanford Law School
"The strength of this book is Fisher's willingness to step above the political fray to solve problems. He has produced one of the most important books in media studies and law in some years. It is refreshing, bold, and provocative. We need it badly." --Siva Vaidhyanathan, Director of Communication Studies, Department of Culture and Communication, New York University

This anthology presents, for the first time, full texts of the twenty most important works of American legal thought since 1890. Drawing on a course the editors teach at Harvard Law School, the book traces the rise and evolution of a distinctly American form of legal reasoning. These are the articles that have made these authors--from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., to Ronald Coase, from Ronald Dworkin to Catherine MacKinnon--among the most recognized names in American legal history.

These authors proposed answers to the classic question: "What does it mean to think like a lawyer--an American lawyer?" Their answers differed, but taken together they form a powerful brief for the existence of a distinct and powerful style of reasoning--and of rulership. The legal mind is as often critical as constructive, however, and these texts form a canon of critical thinking, a toolbox for resisting and unravelling the arguments of the best legal minds. Each article is preceded by a short introduction highlighting the article's main ideas and situating it in the context of its author's broader intellectual projects, the scholarly debates of his or her time, and the reception the article received.

Law students and their teachers will benefit from seeing these classic writings, in full, in the context of their original development. For lawyers, the collection will take them back to their best days in law school. All readers will be struck by the richness, the subtlety, and the sophistication with which so many of what have become the cliches of everyday legal argument were originally formulated."

"Digital technologies have given society an extraordinary cultural potential. If that potential is to be made real, we must reconcile it with the legitimate and important claims of copyright. In this beautifully written and careful work, Fisher, more completely than anyone else, maps the choices that we might make. He argues for a choice that would produce enormous social good. And while not everyone will agree with the conclusions he draws, no one who cares seriously about creators or culture can ignore the framework that he has set. There are choices that we as a society must make. And as Rawls did in political theory, or Milton Friedman did in economics, Fisher provides an understanding that will color policy analysis for the generations to come."--Lawrence Lessig, Stanford Law School
"The strength of this book is Fisher's willingness to step above the political fray to solve problems. He has produced one of the most important books in media studies and law in some years. It is refreshing, bold, and provocative. We need it badly." --Siva Vaidhyanathan, Director of Communication Studies, Department of Culture and Communication, New York University

Central to the development of the American legal system, writes Professor Finkelman in Slavery & the Law, is the institution of slavery. It informs us not only about early concepts of race and property, but about the nature of American democracy itself. Prominent historians of slavery and legal scholars analyze the intricate relationship between slavery, race, and the law from the earliest Black Codes in colonial America to the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law and the Dred Scott decision prior to the Civil War. Slavery & the Law's wide-ranging essays focus on comparative slave law, auctioneering practices, rules of evidence, and property rights, as well as issues of criminality, punishment, and constitutional law. What emerges from this multi-faceted portrait is a complex legal system designed to ensure the property rights of slave-holders and to institutionalize racism. The ultimate result was to strengthen the institution of slavery in the midst of a growing trend toward democracy in the mid-nineteenth-century Atlantic community.

A comprehensive, in-depth discussion of the most influential movement in American legal history, and one which remains more than fifty years later the subject of lively debate, this collection of readings, written largely between 1900 and 1940, includes works from prominent writers on the subject that have never before been generally available. Introduced and edited by noted scholars in the field, the anthology includes such contributors as Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Thayer, Roscoe Pound, John Chipman Gray, Wesley Hohfeld, Karl Llewellyn, Arthur Corbin, Nathan Issacs, Robert Hale, Harold Laski, Max Radin, and others. With concise biographical notes as well as introductions to provide historical context, each selection addresses a different debate involving Legal Realism. Included is a selective bibliography, making the text valuable to a broad range of scholars.