Product Description

Much more than an historical examination of liability, criminal law, torts, bail, possession and ownership, and contracts, The Common Law articulates the ideas and judicial theory of one of the greatest justices of the Supreme Court. G. Edward White reminds us why the book remains essential reading not only for law students but also for anyone interested in American history. The text published is, with occasional corrections of typographical errors, identical with that found in the first and all subsequent printings by Little, Brown.

Customer Reviews (1)

Much mentioned; seldom read
This is a new edition of the Harvard version of Justice Holmes' classic "The Common Law." It supercedes an earlier HUP edition published in 1963 which was edited by the esteemed Holmes scholar, Mark DeWolfe Howe.The original and continuing publisher of the official version of the book (first published in 1881) is Little, Brown. This edition is edited and has a fine brief introduction by Ted White, the current leading Holmes scholar, who teaches at the law school of the University of Virginia, and has written (among other books on the Justice) "Justice Olilver Wendell Holmes: Law and the Inner Self," certainly our finest and most interesting biography of the Justice.

Like its predecessor HUP volume, this edition contains the important marginal notes that Holmes entered into his own copy of the book (now in the HLS library), which do not appear in the official Little, Brown editions. Also included is Howe's "Glossary of Legal Terms." Professor White has added an illuminating chronology of the Justice's life, a helpful short bibliography, as well as his perceptive 26-page introduction. The typography is far superior to the earlier HUP edition.The only problem I can recount is that this edition (as was the case with Howe's edition) does not contain facsimile pages, so that the reset pages do not match the Little, Brown page numbers. Almost all citations to the book found in the literature cite to the Little, Brown version--so this is somewhat a disadvantage.

Unfortunately, not even Professor White's additions can make this an easy and readable book. I venture to suggest that very few of those who call themselves students of Holmes (including myself) have read much of the book.Moreover, having been published in 1881, it was long ago subplanted by more recent research in the field. Nonetheless, as White points out in his introduction, there are nuggets here for those interested in Holmes' view of the law, which in large measure sparked a few legal revolutions, including sociological jurisprudence and legal realism to name just two.This new edition makes this classic available in a reasonably-priced and pleasant format for those with the enduranceto read it. ... Read more

Product Description
The aim of this book is to explore what it means to live a lifeunder the law. Does a life of law preclude love and does a life oflove preclude law? Part of the theme of the book is that socialquestions also raise individual moral and ethical questions; that tolive lawfully implies both a question of how I should live in myrelations with my fellows and how society should be organised. Thesequestions must be looked at together. The book explores thesequestions and in looking at the articulation of law and love touchesupon debates in personal morality, aesthetics, epistemology, socialand political organisation, institutional design and the form andsubstance of law. It raises questions that are of interest to studentsand those working in law, theology, and social and political theory. ... Read more

Product Description
This book explains the rules for interpretation of treaties and gives examples of their application in national and international jurisdictions. The rules of treaty interpretation codified in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties now apply to virtually all treaties which may be encountered in an international context and also within national legal systems where treaties have an impact on a large and growing range of matters.

The rules of treaty interpretation differ somewhat from typical rules for interpreting legal instruments and legislation within national legal systems. Lawyers, and also some administrators, diplomats, and officials at international organizations, are increasingly likely to encounter issues of treaty interpretation which require not only knowledge of the relevant rules of interpretation, but also how these rules have been, and are to be, applied in practice. Now that the codified rules of treaty interpretation have been in force for some twenty-five years, there is a considerable body of case law on their application. This case law, combined with the history and analysis of the rules of treaty interpretation, provides a basis for understanding this most important task in the application of treaties internationally and within national systems of law. Any lawyer who ever has to consider international matters, and increasingly any lawyer whose work involves domestic legislation with any international connection, is at risk nowadays of encountering a treaty provision which requires interpretation, whether the treaty provision is explicitly in issue or is the source of the relevant domestic legislation. This book provides a guide to interpreting treaties properly in accordance with the modern rules. ... Read more

Product Description

Autonomy is often said to be the dominant ethical principle in modern bioethics, and it is also important in law. Respect for autonomy is said to underpin the law of consent, which is theoretically designed to protect the right of patients to make decisions based on their own values and for their own reasons. The notion that consent underpins beneficent and lawful medical intervention is deeply rooted in the jurisprudence of countries throughout the world. However, Autonomy, Consent and the Law challenges the relationship between consent rules and autonomy, arguing that the very nature of the legal process inhibits its ability to respect autonomy, specifically in cases where patients argue that their ability to act autonomously has been reduced or denied as a result of the withholding of information which they would have wanted to receive.

Sheila McLean further argues that the bioethical debate about the true nature of autonomy – while rich and challenging – has had little if any impact on the law. Using the alleged distinction between the individualistic and the relational models of autonomy as a template, the author proposes that, while it might be assumed that the version ostensibly preferred by law – roughly equivalent to the individualistic model – would be transparently and consistently applied, in fact courts have vacillated between the two to achieve policy-based objectives. This is highlighted by examination of four specific areas of the law which most readily lend themselves to consideration of the application of the autonomy principle: namely refusal of life-sustaining treatment and assisted dying, maternal/foetal issues, genetics and transplantation.

This book will be of great interest to scholars of medical law and bioethics.

Product Description
The author explores the concept of law in the light of a general theory of social systems, showing the important part law plays in resolving the fundamental problems a society may face. ... Read more

Product Description

Economic analysis of law is an interesting and challenging attempt to employ the concepts and reasoning methods of modern economic theory so as to gain a deeper understanding of legal problems. According to Richard A. Posner it is the role of the law to encourage market competition and, where the market fails because transaction costs are too high, to simulate the result of competitive markets. This would maximize economic efficiency and social wealth.

In this work, the lawyer and economist Klaus Mathis critically appraises Posner’s normative justification of the efficiency paradigm from the perspective of the philosophy of law. Posner acknowledges the influences of Adam Smith and Jeremy Bentham, whom he views as the founders of normative economics. He subscribes to Smith’s faith in the market as an ideal allocation model, and to Bentham’s ethical consequentialism. Finally, aligning himself with John Rawls’s contract theory, he seeks to legitimize his concept of wealth maximization with a consensus theory approach.

In his interdisciplinary study, the author points out the possibilities as well as the limits of economic analysis of law. It provides a method of analysing the law which, while very helpful, is also rather specific. The efficiency arguments therefore need to be incorporated into a process for resolving value conflicts. In a democracy this must take place within the political decision-making process. In this clearly written work, Klaus Mathis succeeds in making even non-economists more aware of the economic aspects of the law.

Product Description
EU Competition Law: General Principles (EU Competition Law Library) provides an authoritative overview of competition law in the European Union. It includes up to date and detailed analysis of core Treaty articles and case law on the fundamental principles affecting commercial agreements, abuse of dominant position and state involvement and its effect under competition law. The authors are leading practitioners in the field of UK and EU competition law. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

The Jewish Way relating to the Shoah.
Halakha could be translated as the "Jewish Way" and encompasses both law in the purely juridical sense and ethics in thoseareas were value choices must be made and ideals implemented.
This book describes the various Halachic questions and rulings on issues relating to the Holocaust.
The book deals with questions as to whether it was acceptable according to Halakha for a Jew to try to save his or her life in times of murderous persecution bypublicly embracing conversion to a non-Jewish faith.

The permissibility of buying a family member their right to live in exchange for the life of another Jew, and how Jewish observance of law andof fasts and holidays could or should have been observed.

In his forward the editor of the series Norman Lamm reminds us of the findings of Professor Uriel Tal in suggesting that the Nazis focused on Judaism no less than the Jews as their major enemy.'The theoreticians of of Nazism defined their movement as a "political theology" and as a form of secular messianism diametrically opposed to the religion and messianism of Judaism, which was thus conceived of as essentially anti-Nazi. The confrontation between Jews and Nazis was thus formulated as not only political and racial but also as ideological- indeed theological'.
This similar ideological battle against Judaism has been taken up by such ideologies as Communism, revolutionary leftismand Islamism.
The book recounts an incident where a kapo who is a Communist political prisoner discovers a Jew carrying a tallit katon. The kapo is engaged at the Jews steadfast belief in G-D and beats him murderously.
The book recounts how underground yeshivot were organized in the ghetto and how so many Jews gave up or risked their lives to continue with Jewish observances in the ghettos and concentration camps.
The book tells us that saying kaddish for a righteous gentile who saved Jews was certainly permissible, in fact a mitzvah (good deed).
"May He who does loving-kindness to His people Israel, repay with loving kindness the righteous ones of the nations of the world who risked their lives to save the people of Israel. |May the Almighty who blesses His people Israel with peace, bless them with everything good. May they see when G-D returns the captivity of Zion and the rebuilding of his chosen sanctuary in which we shall once again offer sacrifices in behalf of the seventy nations of the world, speedily and in our days. Amen."

The book also informs us that Jewish girls who were forced by the Nazis to act as prostitutes for Nazi officers, were exonerated completely and were permitted to their husbands.
In fact that tattoo that the Nazis stamped on these girls branding them "Prostitute for the Armies of Hitler' is a mark of their suffering for thesanctification of G-D's name and need not even be removed. It is a sign of honor and strength, not of shame and disgrace.
A fascinating volume on how Jewish Halakah related to the the Jewish people's greatest catastrophy of modern times.

interesting
This book discusses a wide variety of halachic queries that rabbis had to answer in the ghettos and concentration camps.Some of these queries directly involved matters of life and death (e.g. should a Jew bribe his or her way out of the camps if another Jew will be substituted?), while many others involved ways of fulfilling more routine ritual duties in trying circumstances.Where common sense answers were possible, the rabbis profiled generally applied common sense.Of course, in some life and death situations, rabbis had much more difficulty.This book discusses both types of situations.

A painful and holy work
This is a difficult work to read. It contains the account of very greatsufferings . For in considering Halachic questions raised in the Shoah(Holocaust) Irving J. Rosenbaumrecounts actual historical incidents.In his acknowledgement he expresses his gratitude to the most important source for Holocaust responsa Rabbi Ephraim Oshry's Teshuvot - mi-Maamakin (Responsa from the Depths) In the editor's preface he talks of those who were heroes during the Shoah 'believing Jews who summoned up and unbelievable and invincible dedication to God and Judaism, and to life itself'. In impossible circumstances they strove to live in accordance with the Jewish way, the way of Halachah. These are the chapters of the work, Holocaust and Halakhah, Matters of Life and Death, Prayer, Study and Martyrdom, " How Does One Bless?" Bearing Witness, The Appointed Seasons, Out of the Depths.

I will cite one harrowing eventof the many related in the work.

" On the eighth of Heshvan 5702 (October 29,1941) a day known to Kovno Jews as " The Black Day" the Germans commanded that all the Jews from the ghetto, under penalty of death, assemble in the Demokratia Platz for a selektion. Some thirty thousand, men, women and children stood before the Gestapo selector,Raukah, on a stormy , gray day. Snow and rain mixed together fell on the faces of the victims and mingled with their tears. No one knew whether he or his loved ones would return alive.
In the crowd of Jews, a certain Reb Elyah from Warsaw, a refugee who had futilely thought to escape the Germans by fleeing to Lithuania from Poland, approached Rabbi Oshry. He knew, he said, thatmany thousands of those who stood there that day would be killed on the morrow. He, too , might well be included in their number. And so he asked what was the proper and precise formof the benediction to be recited before sanctifying the name of God through martyrdom. Was it ' all kiddush ha- shem' who has commanded us concerning the sanctification of the Name'? Or would it be more correct to say le'kadesh et ha- shem' - who has commanded us to sanctify the Name? Reb Elyah wanted to know the correct benediction not only for his own sake. He proposed- as perhaps his last mitzvah on earth to pass among the throng of Jews packed into Demoktratia Platz and teach it to others so that they, too might recite the benediction which the din- the law required.
Rabbi Oshry instructed Reb Elyah to recite the benediction as it is found in the Sheneh Luhot ha-Brit (Sha'ar ha-Otiot 1),'le' kadesh et shemo ba'rabim' who has sanctified us by His commandments and commanded us to sanctify His name in the presence of many." He indicated that according to Riva, the use of the word al in a benediction is restricted to commandments that could be performed in one's behalf by an agent.Since kiddush- ha- shem was obviously not such a mitzvah , it would require the use of the infinite with the lamed l'kadesh. Reb Elyah repeated the proper form several times, and then went through the crowd teaching it toothers so that if and when the time came for them to die as martyrs , they would have the merit of having recited the proper benediction.'

... Read more

Product Description
This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's large-scale digitization efforts. The Library seeks to preserve the intellectual content of items in a manner that facilitates and promotes a variety of uses. The digital reformatting process results in an electronic version of the original text that can be both accessed online and used to create new print copies. The Library also understands and values the usefulness of print and makes reprints available to the public whenever possible. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found in the HathiTrust, an archive of the digitized collections of many great research libraries. For access to the University of Michigan Library's digital collections, please see http://www.lib.umich.edu and for information about the HathiTrust, please visit http://www.hathitrust.org ... Read more

Product Description
Hardcover: 205 pages Publisher: Ktav Pub Inc (December 1988) Language: English ISBN-10: 0881251291 ISBN-13: 978-0881251296 Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches ... Read more

Product Description
All natural change is subject to one law.It's the second law of thermodynamics.In this volume, the acclaimed chemist and science writer P. W. Atkins shows how this single, simple principle of energy transformation accounts for all natural change.Moving from the steam engine to the nuclear age, the narrative is full of vivid examples, ideas, and images--but virtually no mathematics.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Its begining to dawn on me
I graduated as mechanical engineer and I still do not grasp the 2nd Law.

This is wonderful book for those of us confused and frustrated. Its from Scientiffic American, I guess I can't go wrong.

A wonderful introduction to thermodynamics
Atkins does the best job I know of to explain the goals and principles of thermodynamics to the layman. He is a great pedagogue, and his book is wonderful. It is neither simplistic nor arcane. It is a non mathematical introduction to thermodynamics, with the advantages and the obvious limitations of such an approach. At the outset Atkins warns us that mathematics are a tool to help us describe scientifically the world, a very powerful tool indeed, but not more. And at first it is better to get a first glimpse of thermodynamics without this tool. Then for those interested in going further mathematics become indispensable. Atkins book, I hope, will spurr many vocations ; many great physicists of the future will fondly remember Atkins book as their first marvellous introduction to the beauties of thermodynamics.

Beautiful Exposition
I have almost all the books in the Scientific American series and each is a gem in itself.Covering subjects as varied as gravity, cells, sound, vision and motion, these works offer a clarity of scientific exposition rarely encountered.

Many of these books are quite approachable (Powers of Ten), some are quite technical and require a knowledgable background of the subject."The Second Law" falls somewhere between the two.The first problem is understanding what the second law says. The second problem is relating this to the universe of reality.

Perhaps the greatest problem in relating current scientific to the average layman is that the subject matter is so arcane and sophisticated.Most non-scientists (particularly considering the dismal state of science in public education) cannot grasp either the theory, mechanics or ramifications of that research - nor do they want to.The hardback book is beautiful with many illustrations. The writing is technically superb and at the same time literate and approachable.If you are a serious student of the way the universe operates, get this book.

A less-than-adequate exposition
This book is an attempt to render the second law of thermodynamics and its basic quantity-- entropy-- in nonmathematical terms comprehensible to a general reader. Atkins does well in expressing these often-difficult concepts in layman's terms; unfortunately, in so doing, his book has also succumbed to the same oversimplifications that have made the law so confusing and contradictory to students in the first place.

The book repeats the old-fashioned equivalence of entropy to disorder, in spite of the fact that while the second law (in the Boltzmann formulation) is suggestive of a trend toward disorder, the latter is a complicated concept that is not fully encapsulated by entropy. The entropy of a circumscribed system can in fact be a motor toward greater order. Atkins does allude to this notion in the later chapters that deal with ordering phenomena that cast off a correspondingly greater amount of entropy outside the system; but the treatment is surprisingly cursory, the book leaving out many crucial examples (e.g. the spontaneous particle-size separation in a Boltzmannian container with only Brownian motion, radiative energy transfer, canonical chaotic systems, aspects of polymeric molecule behaviour and organisation) that have spurred the debate about the meaning and implications of the second law in the first place.

The second law has been formulated in so many different forms and seems to say so many different things that it would have been helpful to have a "sorting out" in a book dedicated to explaining it; but this does not occur here, and all the confusion about information, different forms of order/disorder, the semantic difficulties of heat vs. mechanical energy, that make students' questions so difficult to answer-- the book fails to address these to any sufficiency. There are also the issues of reconciling the entropy concept with general relativity and gravitational fields, one of the most fascinating challenges and, here, given short shrift. The book toward its close indulges in an odd speculative and metaphysical meditation that is overgeneralised, unsupported, and entirely out of place in a work that, for all its flaws, was at least restrained up to this later portion. In teaching the second law one of the most important emphases to be made is the rigorous demand to specify the set of conditions that define the experimental system, and the lack of restraint on the author's part here is therefore quite a disappointment.

Those interested in a nonmathematical exposition of the second law should instead read Valery Chalidze's "Entropy Demystified"; J.S. Dugdale's "Entropy and Its Physical Meaning," while of a more mathematical bent, is worth the effort if you have some background in physics or applied mathematics, probably being the most thorough treatment available.

Entropy without the math
The '2nd Law' is, of course, the second law of thermodynamics. This reference has the advantage over typical thermodynamic books in being nonmathematical, and very appropriate reading for the general reader. ... Read more

Product Description

Ethics in Psychiatry: (1) presents a comprehensive review of ethical issues arising in psychiatric care and research; (2) relates ethical issues to changes and challenges of society; (3) examines the application of general ethics to specific psychiatric problems and relates these to moral implications of psychiatry practice; (4) deals with recently arising ethical problems; (5) contains contributions of leading European ethicists, philosophers, lawyers, historians and psychiatrists; (6) provides a basis for the exploration of culture-bound influences on morals, manners and customs in the light of ethical principles of global validity.

Product Description

Studies in Legal Logic is a collection of nine interrelated papers about the logic, epistemology and ontology of law. All of the papers were written after the publication of the author’s Reasoning with Rules and supplement the issues addressed therein. Some of the papers are new; others have been revised substantially after the publication of their original versions. The emphasis is on analysis, not on logical technicalities.

Studies in Legal Logic contains chapters about the nature of norms, the role of coherence in the law, the nature of defeasibility, the role of dialectics in law and artificial intelligence, the statics and dynamics of the law, and the consistency of rules. Moreover, it contains a new, simplified and yet more powerful version of Reason-based Logic and extensive examples of how it can be used for the analysis of legal reasoning. The examples deal with legal theory construction, case-based reasoning, and judicial proof.

Product Description
This new edition of EC Employment Law provides a complete revision and update of the leading English language text in the field. The coverage in the new edition has been expanded with material on all the latest developments, including the new Equality Directives, the development of the European Employment Strategy, the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) as well as more traditional regulatory techniques. It also analyses the ever expanding body of employment case law.

The book begins with an examination of the development of EC employment law focusing on the shift from employment law to employment policy. The text then considers rule-making in the field of employment law considering both the traditional routes to legislation and the new governance techniques, including the OMC. The book considers the substantive area of employment law, considering the free movement of persons, equal treatment, health and safety and working conditions, the restructuring of enterprises, worker participations and collective action. Throughout, the book addresses the fundamental question as to the purpose of EC employment law: is it primarily economic, social or both? ... Read more

Product Description
Critical Studies in Private Law discusses theprerequisites and possibilities for an alternative or critical legaldogmatics. The starting point of the analysis is the recognition ofcontradictions within the legal order. In this respect the theory mayuse the experience of both American Critical Legal Studies and theGerman attempts to formulate a legal theory for the social state. Thekey for understanding how the contradictory concrete legal materialmay produce varying results on the level of legal decisions is thesystematization, the general principles of the law.
The analysis does not, however, stop at this theoretical level. Themethodology is tested through a discussion of some features of modernprivate law. Some key elements of contract law, including consumerlaw, of the Welfare State are singled out. The work focuses on theperson-orientation of modern law as a challenge to the traditionalabstract legal form. The aim is to explore the limits for a contractlaw radically oriented towards the personal social and economic needsof the parties. This endeavour involves the creation of new legalconcepts such as social force majeure.
... Read more