Thinking Without a Banister


Book Description

Hannah Arendt was born in Germany in 1906 and lived in America from 1941 until her death in 1975. Thus her life spanned the tumultuous years of the twentieth century, as did her thought. She did not consider herself a philosopher, though she studied and maintained close relationships with two great philosophers—Karl Jaspers and Martin Heidegger—throughout their lives. She was a thinker, in search not of metaphysical truth but of the meaning of appearances and events. She was a questioner rather than an answerer, and she wrote what she thought, principally to encourage others to think for themselves. Fearless of the consequences of thinking, Arendt found courage woven in each and every strand of human freedom. In 1951 she published The Origins of Totalitarianism, in 1958 The Human Condition, in 1961 Between Past and Future, in 1963 On Revolution and Eichmann in Jerusalem, in 1968 Men in Dark Times, in 1970 On Violence, in 1972 Crises of the Republic, and in 1978, posthumously, The Life of the Mind. Starting at the turn of the twenty-first century, Schocken Books has published a series of collections of Arendt’s unpublished and uncollected writings, of which Thinking Without a Banister is the fifth volume. The title refers to Arendt’s description of her experience of thinking, an activity she indulged without any of the traditional religious, moral, political, or philosophic pillars of support. The book’s contents are varied: the essays, lectures, reviews, interviews, speeches, and editorials, taken together, manifest the relentless activity of her mind as well as her character, acquainting the reader with the person Arendt was, and who has hardly yet been appreciated or understood. (Edited and with an introduction by Jerome Kohn)




Is Administrative Law Unlawful?


Book Description

“Hamburger argues persuasively that America has overlaid its constitutional system with a form of governance that is both alien and dangerous.” —Law and Politics Book Review While the federal government traditionally could constrain liberty only through acts of Congress and the courts, the executive branch has increasingly come to control Americans through its own administrative rules and adjudication, thus raising disturbing questions about the effect of this sort of state power on American government and society. With Is Administrative Law Unlawful?, Philip Hamburger answers this question in the affirmative, offering a revisionist account of administrative law. Rather than accepting it as a novel power necessitated by modern society, he locates its origins in the medieval and early modern English tradition of royal prerogative. Then he traces resistance to administrative law from the Middle Ages to the present. Medieval parliaments periodically tried to confine the Crown to governing through regular law, but the most effective response was the seventeenth-century development of English constitutional law, which concluded that the government could rule only through the law of the land and the courts, not through administrative edicts. Although the US Constitution pursued this conclusion even more vigorously, administrative power reemerged in the Progressive and New Deal Eras. Since then, Hamburger argues, administrative law has returned American government and society to precisely the sort of consolidated or absolute power that the US Constitution—and constitutions in general—were designed to prevent. With a clear yet many-layered argument that draws on history, law, and legal thought, Is Administrative Law Unlawful? reveals administrative law to be not a benign, natural outgrowth of contemporary government but a pernicious—and profoundly unlawful—return to dangerous pre-constitutional absolutism.




Our Republican Constitution


Book Description

This new book by Adam Tomkins sets out a radical vision of the British constitution. It argues that despite its outwardly monarchic form the constitution is profoundly informed, and indeed shaped, by values and practices of republicanism. The republican reading of the constitution presented in this book places political accountability at the core of the constitutional order. As such, Our Republican Constitution offers a powerful rejoinder to the current trend in legal scholarship that sees the common law and the courts, rather than Parliament, as the central players in holding government to account. The book further contends that while the constitution should be understood as having republican foundations, current constitutional practice is, in a number of respects, insufficiently republican in character. The book closes by outlining a programme of republican constitutional reform that is designed to secure genuinely responsible government. This is an original and provocative reinterpretation of the central themes of the British constitution, drawing on constitutional history (especially of the seventeenth century), political theory and public law.




Texas Rules of Form


Book Description




Tall Walls and High Fences


Book Description

"Book is a comprehensive history of the Texas Prison system starting in the 1840s and coming up to the present, including the COVID-19 crisis. Focus is on the guards and administrators but all aspects are discussed"--




Researching Texas Law


Book Description

This practical manual covers not only traditional areas of legal research (such as cases, court rules, statutes, and regulations), but also includes research instruction for more practitioner-oriented items, including the following: jury instructions; civil jury verdicts and settlements; briefs, records, and oral arguments; attorneys general opinions; professional responsibility sources; and Texas practice materials. It updates the references to print and online sources throughout the text to reflect current editions, and instructs readers how to provide proper citations to legal materials according to the Bluebook (20th ed. 2015) and/or the Greenbook (14th ed. 2018). This book is intended for law students, attorneys who practice law in Texas, and the many thousands of additional individuals who engage in legal research in a practical setting.--Publisher.




Texas Legal Research


Book Description

Texas Legal Research, Second Edition, is a practical, process-oriented guide to the skills and resources necessary to research Texas law. The book is designed for teaching first-year students, either as a stand-alone text or in conjunction with a research text focusing on federal law. The book is also suitable for use in advanced legal research courses. Others who will find the book useful include practitioners, paralegals, college students, laypersons, and anyone needing a concise handbook on how to find and use Texas legal materials. The book begins by explaining the nature and types of legal authority. The process of legal research and control of legal research projects are described in the first chapter, with an emphasis on the integral nature of legal research and legal analysis. These concepts are revisited and reinforced throughout the book. The second chapter explains basic principles underlying legal research, factors to consider in choosing whether to search online or in print, and techniques to add power and precision to legal research. Since students often use online research tools from the beginning of their studies, the second chapter also introduces online searching techniques and principles. Research using print and online resources is explained for each type of legal resource throughout the book. The order of coverage of types of legal authority has been substantially changed in the second edition, in order to track the author's recommended research process. Secondary materials are now addressed in chapter 3, followed by chapters devoted to the resources and techniques of constitutional research, statutory research, legislative history research, administrative agency law research, and case law research. The second edition adds an entirely new chapter on Texas local government law research. The historical and governmental roots of Texas legal resources are traced for each type of primary law. Updating techniques are explained in context for each type of legal material and a chapter is devoted to the use of online citators. An appendix explains the basics of legal citation, the use of the Greenbook and the Bluebook, special rules of Texas citation, and the ALWD Guide to Legal Citation. The second edition contains a new appendix discussing techniques for searching directly in the online case databases included in Westlaw, Lexis Advance, and Bloomberg Law. Most chapters contain tables with step-by-step guides to research in particular types of legal resources, as well as summaries of other critical information. Screenshots and images of research materials are included to illustrate the lessons of the text. For each type of resource, research in federal law is addressed following the discussion of research in Texas law. This book is part of the Legal Research Series, edited by Suzanne E. Rowe, Director of Legal Research and Writing, University of Oregon School of Law.




Lessons in Censorship


Book Description

American public schools often censor controversial student speech that the Constitution protects. Lessons in Censorship brings clarity to a bewildering array of court rulings that define the speech rights of young citizens in the school setting. Catherine J. Ross examines disputes that have erupted in our schools and courts over the civil rights movement, war and peace, rights for LGBTs, abortion, immigration, evangelical proselytizing, and the Confederate flag. She argues that the failure of schools to respect civil liberties betrays their educational mission and threatens democracy. From the 1940s through the Warren years, the Supreme Court celebrated free expression and emphasized the role of schools in cultivating liberty. But the Burger, Rehnquist, and Roberts courts retreated from that vision, curtailing certain categories of student speech in the name of order and authority. Drawing on hundreds of lower court decisions, Ross shows how some judges either misunderstand the law or decline to rein in censorship that is clearly unconstitutional, and she powerfully demonstrates the continuing vitality of the Supreme Court’s initial affirmation of students’ expressive rights. Placing these battles in their social and historical context, Ross introduces us to the young protesters, journalists, and artists at the center of these stories. Lessons in Censorship highlights the troubling and growing tendency of schools to clamp down on off-campus speech such as texting and sexting and reveals how well-intentioned measures to counter verbal bullying and hate speech may impinge on free speech. Throughout, Ross proposes ways to protect free expression without disrupting education.




Texas Criminal Law


Book Description

For undergraduate courses in Texas Criminal Law Criminal Law in the Lone Star State Texas Criminal Law: Principles and Practices provides an in-depth review of Texas criminal law while highlighting how Texas legal sanctions differ from other states. Its state-specific focus on terminology and laws makes this an ideal text for readers planning to serve in the Texas criminal justice system. The Second Edition uses historical references and inter-state comparisons to examine the Texas criminal law system in varied contexts. The book uses real world examples of the day-to-day application of laws by law enforcement to connect major concepts to their practical application in the field. A scholarly presentation is balanced by an informal tone, making Texas Criminal Law interesting and easily digestible for readers.