We must read literature regarding aging with a critical and cautious mind. While many people seek to reify stereotypes and wordfacts about the aging process, it is important to explore these assertions before absorbing them into our thinking about older adults and the aging experience. Posner makes some rather ageist remarks in this text, particularly as he justifies age discrimination in the workplace. Any reader of this book must realize the perspective of its author, and question his credentials that qualify him to write on such an issue. While gerontology is a multidisciplinary field, it cannot tolerate ageist contributors.

Broadly researched and well-referenced, this clearly-written book is a realistic take on the coming age wave. It openly challenges both the fear-mongerers and the brave new world types. The ideas are compelling and extremely well-presented. The scope and detail of his reseach is far beyond that of average writers.

The interdisciplinary breadth and depth of analysis provided by Judge Posner is an extremely rare insight into the evolution of human life and its role in the socioeconomic features of modern socities.This is a great book for anybody- young or old, or in between !

Posner's thesis in this case begins with the assumption of rationally acting individual humanist subject that, although perhaps defensible in the 18th century, has since been seriously challenged by empirical study and theory in the social sciences as well as contemporary philosophy and jurisprudence. Often critical of other professionals who stray out of their area of expertise, Posner has no qualms about playing psychologist, even in the abcence of empirical support. There are some sharp ideas presented here, but I doubt Posner will revolutionize health policy in this case.

In this brilliant work the authors tackle a controversial topic with a clearheaded, analytical analysis that is profoundly lacking in the realm of public policy debate. This void is especially profound in topics, such as AIDS, where the mere suggestion of a bottom-line quantitative approach is incendiary. Mr. Philipson deftly handles the obvious emotional issues, which allows the debate to become correctly focused on the decision making process and its implications. These implications are obviously profound to not only the participant but the rest of society who is forced to pick up the tab. The cogent voice of reason proffered by the authors is a rare attempt to analyze an important social concern without the cloak of self interest. It is a welcome and crucial perspective. Today's policy debates would be well served if the authors would apply their insight and intelligence to the myriad of social concerns which have become engulfed in the political and emotional myasma which inhibits a rational understanding of issues. It is an exceptional approach and a brilliant contribution by Philipson and Posner.

Judge Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals and Professor Katharine Silbaugh of Boston University's law school undertaken an impressive task, and they have done half the job very well. "A Guide to America's Sex Laws" is an exhaustive survey of the existing statutes from all fifty states (and the federal government where applicable) for crimes from rape to sodomy to necrophilia. A single volume containing every statute is indeed a valuable resource, but there is a serious problem. Statutes require judicial interpretation, and this book provides very little explanation toward that end. Though each chapter (devoted to a particular offense) includes a brief, survey introduction, the introductions do not provide much help for a reader seeking to know, for example, how Montana courts have interpreted the phrase "deviate sexual relations." As a reference, "A Guide to America's Sex Laws" serves as a good starting point, but the serious researcher will have to use other sources to supplement this text.

The prolific and erudite Judge Posner turns out books at such an astoundingly rapid rate that you'd swear the man has two brains. He is, without a doubt, one of the most notable scholarly writers of our time. It is too bad, then, that this initially appealing book, "Public Intellectuals," falls short of what I expected.

I first learned of this book during an interview with the author on C-SPAN's "Booknotes" with Brian Lamb. As the dust jacket correctly boasts, this volume "is the first systematic analysis of the contemporary American public intellectual." In Part One of the book, Posner's critical chronicle of how today's public intellectual is most often out of his/her league is right on the money. Modern public intellectuals are almost exclusively academics, members of an ever more specialized university culture. Because of this solid trend, the typical public intellectual has very little "expert" knowledge outside of his/her esoteric area of study, lending him/her little if any credentials to comment on the general subject(s) he/she so "authoritatively" tackles in the public media. Posner's arsenal of examples, evidence, names, citations, and footnotes (he is a legal writer, of course) makes his case clear and well-defended.

However agreeable his basic thesis is, though, it is his market approach to characterizing the problem that seems rather incongruent and almost far-fetched. In his effort to quantify the problem of the worsening American public intellectual, Posner draws heavily on economic principles to explain why public intellectuals today are no good--in terms of "market failure." He demonstrates this model in Chapter Five with a veritable data section, full of charts and graphs. Though there is no better way to fortify one's thesis than with scientific evidence, the model Posner chooses just doesn't seem convincing. Public intellectuals do not really participate in a consumer culture, if you think about it. So long as there is (and always has been) public media outlets, intellectuals (genuine and self-proclaimed) will write, comment, prognosticate, and critique.

Part Two of the book consists of five "genre studies" of areas where modern public intellectuals most often tread. Here, Posner takes a detailed look at key intellectual players and painstakingly criticizes and discredits each of them with what can only be described as an off-putting and perfectionist air--except for MIT's Noam Chomsky, who deserves it. From George Orwell to Chicago's Martha Nussbaum, Allan Bloom (whom he "outs") to NYU's Ronald Dworkin (his personal sparring partner), Richard Rorty to Gertrude Himmelfarb, Posner deals each writer a summary list of their shortcomings--and then thanks many of them in the Acknowledgments! Within these 150 pages, the reader is left with little to suggest that any of the prominent public intellectuals of our time retain even one shred of competence.

The Conclusion, the most potentially redemptive (but shortest) section of the book, mollifies some of the blows inflicted by Posner in Part Two. However, the remedies suggested by Posner on how to improve today's public intellectual "market" are so soft, implausible, and ineffective even if implemented, that he might as well just say that restoring integrity to the public intellectual is a hopeless endeavor. The reader can only conclude that Posner's book, enlightening though it is in recognizing and attempting to explain the problem of the declining quality of public intellectuals, falls short of fulfilling its promises in the end.

This book is not what you think. It's not so much a U.S.News-style ranking of public intellectuals, per se. It's even less another of a never-ending stream of "dumbing-down" theses intended to convince us that things were so much better during the Roman Empire. No, it's not that. It IS an indictment of academic specialization.

More specifically, Posner uses a greatly oversimplified microeconomic model to show how the "market" for intellectual products forces would-be public intellectuals into the academy. Within the academy they are encouraged to specialize. Here's the kicker: Academic specialization undermines the intellectuals' ability and motivation to make meaningful statements about broader public matters. The results are a largely academic intellectual debate dominated by esoteric, jargon-ridden theses which fail to engage the general public and are frequently dubious in merit.

Worth a read if you're interested in such matters but, beware, the presentation itself is tedious and repetitive. The best bit is the chapter debunking modern, "jeremiad," decline literature. The polemical material of Bloom, Rorty, and Berman doesn't hold much credibility with Posner.

Having read almost every book written by Richard Posner, I ordered Public Intellectuals: A Study in Decline expecting the usual vibrancy and encyclopedic knowledge on display in his books Sex and Reason and The Problems of Jurisprudence. The whit and fluency are here, but the book is a bit of a hodge-podge. What Posner faults the public intellectual for relying on, among other things, is the use of the anecodote as evidence. Though Posner does not soly use anecdotes, the book is short on any deep study on the role of the public intellectual. I expected Posner to expand on has nascent interest in sociology which was revealed in The Problematics of Moral and Legal Theory, but there is little in the book actually describing the academic milieu, and how it has influenced public intellectuals for the worse.

Don't get me wrong. A so-so book from Posner is better than 99.9% of the stuff published, but there are some things missing in the book.

There are also a lot of things that should have been left out, namely, Posner's retelling of Dworkin's shortcomings as an intellectual. Does Posner have some kind of idee fixe? Dworkin's is a bit of a buffoon, but I already knew that from reading about his role in the Clinton impeachment, which was ably described by -- you guessed it! -- Richard Posner, in An Affair of State.

By replaying the Dworkin wars, Posner gives credence to the claim, which I am sure many will make, that the book is merely an excuse to attack Posner's ideological enemies. That does not mean the books no good, but it does mean that the reader should be suspicious about whether the theory is just true for him.

Nonetheless, it is nice to see gasbags like Chomsky deflated.

There is not a chapter in this book - indeed, if you omit the index, it would hard to find a five-page stretch - that does not swarm with errors and absurdities. And what is notable is that the errors cannot be classed among those that even the well-informed are liable to make from time to time. They are not mere slips of the pen, they are not minor or superficial, nor of the kind that can simply be skipped over because they play little role in the argument that is being developed. No, they are everywhere manifestations of confusion and ignorance. Posner's merry obliviousness to even the simplest facts about literary interpretation and history is in itself remarkable enough, but what is truly extraordinary is the recklessness with which he parades his ignorance for all to see.

For example, in attempting to make sense of "defamation in fiction" - a real tort for which many authors have been held liable, and thus a problem that requires real legal standards - Posner attempts to explain how novelists fashion their fictional worlds out of the materials they observe (and therefore to indicate what authors must be allowed to do if novels are to be written). Simplification, Posner explains, is the crucial process in that process: a good novelist will not bog down the story in particulars, but will try to capture "the *representative* life and the *representative* incident. Real people are too complicated, many novelists say, to be put into a novel without change." For this last proposition, Posner's footnote directs us hopefully to chapter 3 of E.M. Forster's *Aspects of the Novel*. One would look long and hard at Forster's book without finding anything resembling Posner's assertion - and that is not surprising, since Forster understood the craft of fiction. (Forster does, famously, develop a contrast between "round" and "flat" characters, but his point is that novels typically focus on a few characters whose thoughts and motives are probed at length, while the rest of the fictional world is filled out by characters who do not receive such attention. He nowhere suggests that either flat or round characters result from the simplification of real-life personalities, and it hard to see how anyone could imagine that he does). Posner, with his law-and-econ "maximize production at the lowest cost" mentality, may imagine that the simplest representation, with the most general application, will get the biggest marketplace bang for the smallest expenditure of literary energies and ink, but no sane novelist would approach the matter this way. To say that people are "too complicated" to be slapped down on the page "without change" simply misunderstands what fictional representation is - since that proposition assumes, first, that it even makes sense to speak of "putting" someone in a novel "without change," and second, that any change that occurs is a way of avoiding "complication." Yes, it would be absurd to say that anyone can simply be "put into a novel," but it is no less absurd to say that this is so because fiction is simple and humans are complex. To take that view is, first, to betray a sensibility so deadened and hollow as to sacrifice any credibility that might have been afforded for one's literary judgments, and second, to demonstrate such a complete misunderstanding about what novelists do as to prove oneself incapable of fashioning legal standards that will facilitate the creation of fiction at all, let alone in a way that will prevent liability for libel. In short, neither the literary nor the legal worlds can profit from this treatment.

The problem is simply that Posner knows very little about literature and literary history. Thus he is given to fatuous efforts such as his speculations on why Shakespeare did not publish his collected plays when the fact is that in the early 17th century, playwrights made very little from publishing their writings, and hardly anyone bothered to publish their collected works. (When Ben Jonson did in 1616, he was widely ridiculed.) Posner's book is riddled with egregious misstatements of this sort, which would be comcial to anyone with the most basic education in literary history. In attempting to draw legal conclusions based on faulty information of this sort, he only creates further confusion.

Justice Posner is one of the more wondrous polymaths of his generation. Law and Literature, although not the greater of his achievements, is a thoughtful opus, full of illuminating insights. I read his book 6 or 7 years ago but I remember how impressed I was by the sharpness of his analysis of the legal implications of Kafka's Trial and Melville's Billy Budd. I have been roused to giving my opinion because all the other commentators are so uniformly negative about the book. Clearly, either they are missing something, or I am wide off the mark. I propose it's the former, and recommend "Law and Literature" to anyone who wants to know how one of the heights of contemporary legal thought tackles many of the issues that have occupied anyone who knows the law and enjoys literature. The fact that Posner doesn't indulge in deconstructionist twaddle is no reason to abstain.