Professor Richard Sherwin concludes his book with an explicit statement of his thesis, the usual format for mysteries but not for academic studies. If you are a reader who prefers to know where the case studies are headed before reading the case studies, you might do well to read the last chapter first. I hesitate to advise readers to do so, however. Many of Professor Sherwin's analyses of one or a few movies are rich with insight and will inform, enlighten, and even entertain. In contrast, his theoretical contribution (affirmative postmodern theory) is too skimpy to justify a place in my library. Thus, I recommend that readers locate this book in a local library and consult it regarding legal matters in popular culture.

I recommend Mr. Sherwin's analysis of Errol Morris's "The Thin Blue Line." I shall never watch or show that classic without thinking about Professor Sherwin?s gloss thereon. I disagree with his comparison of the older and younger versions of "Cape Fear." I suspected that each of his characterizations of one film might just as easily be asserted about the other, but he held my interest and impelled me to watch both versions again. Mr. Sherwin appears to believe that films of David Lynch and Quentin Tarantino tell us much about theories or institutions of law and law enforcement. I was not convinced but found the argument interesting.

I recommend highly Sherwin's comparison of the "jigsaw puzzle" closing of Marcia Clark and Christopher Darden in the first Simpson trial to the heroic saga narratives favored by Johnnie Cochran and Gerry Spence. Sherwin is especially good at exposing Mr. Spence's skill. Mr. Spence appears to be the shrewd country lawyer whom he plays on television.

I also recommend Sherwin's account of myth making in famous cases of the 19th and 20th centuries, although consideration of landmarks of sensationalism calls into question just when the law began to go "pop."

I recommend that readers skip the numerous lists of questions with which Mr. Sherwin mars his manuscript. I could never be certain where the questions were headed and where I was supposed to the find the answers, if any. Readers should be underwhelmed as well by Mr. Sherwin's generalization from aberrations, including the aforementioned Simpson trial. In these matters, Mr. Sherwin seems to succumb to pop law and to see the world in a sound bite of the erstwhile "Rivera Live."

Most of all, I urge readers to overlook his every attempt to generalize about law and legal institutions from movies. As I have said, Mr. Sherwin's analyses of movies are intriguing. However, getting from the movies analyzed to legal institutions is no minor trick. When Mr. Sherwin would generalize to the legal culture from this or that trend that he claims to see in this or that movie, the reader should indulge his impulse to attend to the movie critique and to ignore the alleged social criticism that, it appears, the author believes his cinematic analyses justify. Mr. Sherwin's methodological justification for this twist on cinematic verity is almost self-satire: "My working assumption is that film, like notorious cases, provides a reasonably reliable indicator of shared, conflicted, and newly emerging beliefs, values, and expectations"(p. 171). With working assumptions such as that, what hypothesis wouldn't work out?

Mr. Sherwin separates postmodern sheep from postmodern goats, but the author's renditions of postmodernism seemed to create multiple Potemkin Villages. The specter of skeptical postmodernism may haunt some in the Western world, but Mr. Sherwin's manifesto will strike most readers as disjointed and overwrought.

Law professor Richard Sherwin argues that the law has fallen prey to the representational form of the mass media, television particularly. The law, in its most noted form, the criminal trial, finds that it must present itself like a television drama in order to conduct its business.

This wouldn't be so bad, argues Sherwin, if the law's ability to curb popular passions, objectively search for "truth," maintain the public's faith in the system, and win the battle between legal truth and the public desire for closure all weren't hamstrung in the process.

In these days when most Americans frame their view of the world based on what they see on television, Sherwin's subject is extremely important. The question is whether this book is worth the effort it will require of many readers. And early on, it's hard to know if it is worth all the trouble.

Mainly, Sherwin couches his central argument in the opaque language of literary criticism and legalese. Perhaps this is done for the sake of greater precision. Nevertheless, as a consequence, all but legal and literary scholars will find themselves back on their heels when reading this dense work. Sherwin does, thankfully, buttress the core of his assertions with illustrations from popular trials, movies and television, which allows many readers to better follow his line of reasoning while getting their feet back under them. Still, the case Sherwin's arguing has been argued at least as well elsewhere and with less technical language.

Tough sledding aside, if you enjoy popular culture and hold the law in high regard, then ready a thick dictionary, find a firm chair, get in good light and read Sherwin's book. Only your stamina will determine whether the outcome was really worth the work.

Zerbe's new book concerns the proper role of benefit-cost analysis in societal decisions such as legal judgements (including precedents), government regulations, and even common law. He improves on earlier concepts of benefit-cost analysis in two major ways: by including transactions costs (like the incidental costs of a sale made inevitable by a change in law or regulation) in calculating the cost to society of a change in the rules, and by acknowledging the fact that we tend to value rights or possessions we already own more highly than those we might acquire. Therefore the cost of giving up a right or possession tends to be greater than the benefit of gaining one. Just the same, Zerbe fails to solve a major flaw of benefit-cost analysis: because costs and benefits must be calculated in terms of amounts of money a party would be willing to spend to gain or retain a right or property, the relatively affluent tend to be favored in such analysis, as they can more easily pay more. Most interestingly, Zerbe shows how common law tends to be economically efficient and changes as societal conditions change so that common law can remain efficient. Despite juicy examples (slavery, cannabilism, rape), Zerbe's book is not really very entertaining and is often difficult. A non-expert on the subject matter must be somewhat determined in order to get through it.

This book deals with issues that occured before the gays-in-the-military debate was in full swing in 1993. Thus, it feels a little dated. Further, it's a collection of documents that fueled the debate, rather than an analysis or an autobiography from one of the expelled gay soldiers. Still, when I was writing my senior college thesis, this book was useful to me. Its best item is an affidavit submitted by the late gay scholar John Boswell. There are better books on the topic, but this one wasn't bad.

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.

It's a bit difficult to know who to recommend this book to. It's not that it's a bad book - it isn't - rather that it contains almost exactly the same arguments as Leviathan, only shorter and in less detail. Consequently they are more convincing in Leviathan than here, and I have to recommend Leviathan instead of this.

If you're unfamiliar with Hobbes, what his political argument basically boils down to is that people are naturally bad, and will all try to steal from their fellows, and kill those that displease them, and so on, meaning that in their natural state man is in a constant state of war. It is necessary then to establish the Leviathan, that is, a Sovereign, who has ultimate power unquestioned by anyone, who stops men from fighting by imposing laws with penalties for breaking them so harsh that it would be madness to not obey them. In this way order is kept.

That is the argument put forward here, and in the Leviathan, only, as I said, the Leviathan puts it better. I can only think this book would be useful to those who find the 500 odd pages of the Leviathan too daunting, and want to start with something shorter.

While Richard Felson (2002) argues that mysoginy has no relaitonship to domestic violence, his argument is internally inconsistent in terms of both statistics and substance. First, the numerical data he presents often contradict his conclusions. For example, Felson states that "women are just as likely as men to be the victims of violence from their partners, at least in Western Countries." This statement directly contradicts his own research findings (p. 37) and Bureau of Justice Statistics (Craven, 1997) which which he provides that show that 20.7% of women are victimized by intimates compared to only 2.8% of males (Felson, 2002, p. 49; see also page 111 for another example).

On a substantive level, Felson frequently conflates the trivial with the traumatic. For example, Felson argues that women's greater use of complaining and anger in relationships "casts doubt on the idea that men's violence against their wives reflects a greater desire to control them" (Felson, 2002, p. 104). Felson thus compares complaining with a "tooth loosening assault intended to punish, humiliate, and terrorize" (Dobash, Dobash, Wilson, & Daly, 1992, p. 75). Note also that the radical feminist theory of domestic violence which Felson purports to critique never states that men have "a greater desire to control" their wives than do their wives but rather contends that battering is a technique by which men control women. Felson thus fails to address the central feminist proposition that battering results in increased power and control for men.

These errors in fact and logic re-occur throughout Felson's work and completely undermine his argument which is unfortunate because this is a topic which deserves careful, well-documented, and thoughtful consideration.

Richard Weisberg's Poethics book seems like a great starting point for exploring law and literature. In fact, it should be the very LAST thing you read. Weisberg cares so much about literature that he disdains the reader. His views on such topics as Billy Budd, Sailor and The Merchant of Venice remind me of people who get high or drunk and then think that their cutesy arguments are somehow noble. Weisberg likes to use 10-cent words where simplicity would be more effective. Weisberg rightly creates a foundation for each of his arguments, but when those arguments fail to pan out, he relies on flimsy spur of the moment theories and his forte, big words that he understands only superficially (it's clear that the man is educated, its also clear he's not educated in language). For example, Weisberg declares decades of scholarship void as he announces that John Claggart is the christ-figure because of the initials J.C. and because the tale was recounted in the News of the Mediterranean. Its almost like Weisberg didn't read the bible, forgot about the meaning of martyrdom and confused the role of the savior with that of the betrayer. Actually, Weisberg's entire book is filled with academic sounding idiocies. Weisberg takes these wacky positions just to sell books. In his class he is unable to defend these positions against the modest queries of students. Weisberg, in the world of law and literature, is the dumb kid on the block who whines to his mom that the other kids won't play with him. Then the dumb kid's mom complains to the other neighborhood moms who make their kids play with the dumb kid. So you have the dumb kid muddying up your games, but the smart kids know to NOT pay him any heed. Weisberg's book is about a giant ego crunch. You should only read this book after to you looked into what Law and Literature is really about. Then you can read the laughable babblings of Prof. Weisberg.

as a student interested in Law & Literature I found Poethics an approachable, interesting, and understandable introduction into the subject. While Weisberg's position on law and literature is fairly evident he does not continually moralize or hit you over the head with it. His analysis of particular texts are always consistent with his overall propositions, adding to the books readability. I found his commentary on other writers in the field useful and evenhanded. This book broadened my thinking and deepened my understanding on the subject. Well worth the read.

Every lawyer knows better than to simply say what they think, give an opinion, or offer unfounded advice. "Don't tell me what you THINK, tell me the LAW!" This book makes that error on a regular basis. You'll get lots of information on how to write and present arguments, but none of it is actually founded on anything. Indeed, much of it flies in the face of what psychology has told us of the effects of primacy and recency. Another lawyer's error that simply underscores how baseless this book is? No citations.

I have used this book as a text in the legal-writing course I teach. It is one of the most widely used and respected legal-writing texts available. Its strengths are that it is clear, easy-to-read, and practical. It lays out the basics of legal analysis, plus it explains how to write a traditional, objective legal memo and a persuasive legal brief. It always gets to the point quickly, and it covers all the important topics a law student will need in a first-year course on legal writing.

One minor weakness is that some of the sample documents in the appendix do not follow the principles explained in the text.

As for the complaint from "A reader from Honolulu" that the book does not cite authority, that's an odd concern. Very few, if any, legal-writing texts cite authority. What would they cite to? Other legal-writing texts (their competition)? What you are buying when you buy a legal-writing text is the expertise of the authors, not a compilation of research on legal writing. I know that these authors are experts, and the advice in this text is practical and effective.

Do you truly wish felons, terrorists, mentally ill, and other "disqualified" people can acquire firearms? Does the possibility of armed criminals scare you?

If you answered yes to either of those questions, or both of those quentions, then you believe in gun control.

The problem is that "gun control" is an amorphous subject, rather like tyranny. One person's tyranny can be another's freedom.

One person fears losing his firearms, the other his ability to walk the streets without fear of being shot.

The problem is that most people, even those who claim to be RKBA, actually would like to see gun control. The problem is that both sides have clouded the topic and don't work toward consensus.

This book is divisive and counterproductive. The title reeks of "gun nut" in all its negative connotations.

I would suggest reading a book that is unbiased in discussing the politics of "gun control" and tries to dispassionately examine the topic rather than this book.

A small collection of pro-gun articles, that range from very good to average. The historian's review of Rome's effort to disarm an enemy (by trick)is almost worth the price of the book.

Unfortunately, I did not read the reviews of this book prior to purchasing it - I thought it was a factual accounting of US Navy Special Warfare efforts against the drug cartels. Had the author stuck with keeping this factual, it would have been a much more valuable read.

The storyline is quite fanciful. The many factual errors concerning US Navy SEAL organization, operations, equipment, and training reveal that the author's background could not be as stated.
The strategy expounded ("Head of the Hydra") is unworkable. The author fails to understand that the essential nature of organized crime is organization. Eliminating the heads of the drug trafficing organizations will not stop their operations.

I enjoyed this book and the few areas which might be considered discrepancies were little more than a matter of perspective. The author did a great job combining information with a smooth reading experience.