Books

Winner of the Joseph L. Andrews Legal Literature Award from the American Association of Law Libraries.

“Illustrated law books” may seem like an oxymoron. After all, law is conceptual, analytic, and so very wordy! Yet for the past decade the Yale Law Library has assembled a lavish collection of over a thousand illustrated law books spanning eight centuries and four continents. Beginning as a major exhibit of that collection at the Grolier Club in Manhattan—praised as “fascinating” by the New Yorker, “eye-opening” by the Wall Street Journal, “courageous” by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and “exceptional” by the New Criterion—Law’s Picture Books will surprise and delight both bibliophiles and members of the legal community. This handsome catalogue is 220 pages, in full color, and includes four original essays.

“An extraordinary new book … splendid for the lawyer-collector.” — Bryan A. Garner, Editor in Chief, Black’s Law Dictionary

“With respect to the many fine law-themed coffee-table books out there, this book is the best. … You have to see it to appreciate it, and you should.” — The Green Bag

“A path-breaking volume.” — Jus Gentium: Journal of International Legal History

“A unique and detailed assessment.” — Greg Lambert, President, American Association of Law Libraries

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Winner of the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. 

A lively, wide-ranging meditation on human development that offers surprising lessons for the future of modern individualism, The Rule of the Clan examines the constitutional principles and cultural institutions of kin-based societies, from medieval Iceland to modern Pakistan.

In the absence of a healthy state, humans naturally tend to create legal structures centered not on individuals but rather on extended family groups. The modern liberal state makes individualism possible by keeping this powerful drive in check—and we ignore the continuing threat to liberal values and institutions at our peril.

Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2013.

“A highly revealing study with global implications.” — Kirkus Reviews

“Accessible, mesmerizing, and compelling.” — New York Journal of Books

More reviews, radio interviews, and purchasing links.

Winner of the Silver Gavel Award of the American Bar Association.

A sweeping history of American ideas of civic belonging, told through the stories of fourteen legal cases that helped shape the nation. Combining riveting narrative with interdisciplinary analysis, Black Trials offers a new way of thinking about inclusion and citizenship—and about the meaning of America itself.

Published by Alfred A. Knopf in 2004.

“From the annals of our judiciary and the shards of human lives, Mark Weiner recreates more knowingly and vividly than anyone the evolving experience of blacks before the law, the experience that has compelled us to reexamine again and again what it is to be a citizen.”—William E. Nelson, Judge Edward Weinfeld Professor of Law, New York University

“A very impressive and important work.” —Annette Gordon-Reed, Harvard Law School,
MacArthur Fellow, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, writing in The American Historical Review

More reviews and purchasing links.

Winner of the President’s Book Award of the Social Science History Association.

Americans Without Law shows how the racial boundaries of civic life are based on widespread perceptions about the relative capacity of minority groups for legal behavior—“juridical racialism.” The book follows the history of this civic discourse by examining the legal status of four minority groups in four successive historical periods: American Indians in the 1880s, Filipinos after the Spanish-American War, Japanese immigrants in the 1920s, and African Americans in the 1940s and 1950s.

Published by New York University Press in 2006.

“Enthralling.” —Peter Fitzpatrick, Birkbeck School of Law, University of London

“This bright and well-informed book deserves a wide readership.” —Peter Charles Hoffer, University of Georgia, writing in Law and History Review

More reviews and purchasing links.