Amazon.com
With its closed chambers and formal language, the Supreme Court tends to deflect drama away from its vastly powerful proceedings. But its mysteries hold plenty of intrigue for anyone with the access to uncover them. In Supreme Conflict, Jan Crawford Greenburg has that access, and then some. With high-placed sourcing that would make Bob Woodward proud, she tells the story of the Court's recent decades and of the often-thwarted attempts by three conservative presidents to remake the Court in their image. Among the revelations are the surprising influence of the most-maligned justice, Clarence Thomas, and the political impact of personal relations among these nine very human colleagues-for-life. Written for everyday readers rather than legal scholars, her account sidesteps theoretical subtleties for a compelling story of the personalities who breathe life into our laws. --Tom Nissley
Crawford graduated from the University of Chicago Law School, and was a legal affairs reporter for the Chicago Tribune and Supreme Court correspondent for PBS's NewsHour before becoming the legal correspondent for ABC News. We had the chance to ask her a few questions about Supreme Conflict:
Questions for Jan Crawford Greenburg
Amazon.com: How hard was it to get the access to justices and clerks that you had for this book? Does the culture of the Court promote that kind of openness about their deliberations?
Jan Crawford Greenburg: Hard! And let me tell you it took some time--they weren't flinging open the doors of their chambers for the first few years I was covering the Court. It takes awhile to build relationships and trust, and I was fortunate enough to do that during the dozen years I've been covering the Supreme Court. As for openness, I think the culture of the Court instead promotes anonymity and privacy. The justices aren't like the people across the street in Congress, or down Pennsylvania Avenue in the White House. They don't hold press conferences or solicit media coverage of their views. They speak through their opinions. I was fortunate that they also chose to speak with me for this important book about the direction of the Supreme Court and its role in our lives.
Amazon.com: Harry Blackmun's notes must be a treasure chest for Court historians. Could you describe what you found there?
Greenburg: A treasure chest is an understatement. Harry Blackmun took extraordinarily detailed notes--almost breathtaking in their scope and level of detail. (He would even write down what lawyers were wearing when they'd appear in Court to argue a case.) He recorded the justices' comments during their private conferences--when they discuss cases--and he took down their votes. And he kept all the key memos and letters that the justices would send back and forth when they were discussing a case. It was a tremendous window into the Court's inner sanctum, during some of the most pivotal years for the institution.
Amazon.com: One of the biggest revelations of your book is your characterization of Clarence Thomas as far more influential, even in his first year on the Court, than he's usually given credit for. Could you describe what his role on the Court has been?
Greenburg: Clarence Thomas has been the most maligned justice in modern history--and also the most misunderstood and mischaracterized. I found conclusive evidence that far from being Antonin Scalia's intellectual understudy, Thomas has had a substantial role in shaping the direction of the Court--from his very first week on the bench. The early storyline on Thomas was that he was just following Scalia's direction, or as one columnist at the time wrote, "Thomas Walks in Scalia's Shoes." That is patently false, as the documents and notes in the Blackmun papers unquestionably show. If any justice was changing his vote to join the other that first year, it was Scalia joining Thomas, not the other way around. But his clear and forceful views affected the Court in unexpected ways. Although he shored up conservative positions, his opinions also caused moderate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor to back away and join the justices on the Left.
Amazon.com: Not every Supreme Court confirmation is a battle, even when the Senate and the President are from different parties. What separates the candidates who sail through from the ones who get put through the wringer?
Greenburg: The recent appointment of Samuel Alito shows a justice with a clearly conservative record can get confirmed--and even pick up some votes from Democrats. Maybe the secret is developing a reputation as a fair and nonpartisan judge on a federal appeals court. At his hearings, liberal and conservative judges who had worked with him on the appeals court testified in his behalf, as did his law clerks--some of whom were self-identified liberals. Alito was the conservative counterpart to Clinton nominee Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She had been an outspoken advocate for liberal causes (including the ACLU), but she'd developed a reputation as a fair and thoughtful judge on the federal appeals court, garnering respect from both sides.
Amazon.com: How much do Americans know about how their federal courts work? What should they know?
Greenburg: Most Americans, understandably, think about trials and drama when the issue of the courts is raised. But the appeals courts--and the Supreme Court--remain mysterious, even though those courts have an enormous impact on American life. The judiciary is one of the three branches of government, but its decisions take on outsized importance at times. It can provide a vital check against abuse of individual rights by government--but it also can usurp the role of the people when it reaches out and takes on issues that more appropriately belong in the purview of the other branches.
Amazon.com: Even though you show how our expectations for where new members will take the Court are so often wrong, I'll ask you anyway: What do you expect in the next few years from the Roberts Court?
Greenburg: To be more conservative than the one led by Chief Justice William Rehnquist. John Roberts himself is a solid judicial conservative who believes the Court has too often taken on issues that belong in the realm of elected legislatures. He is advocating a more restrained approach, with greater consensus among the justices. In addition, Justice Alito replaced key swing-voter Sandra Day O'Connor, the Court's first female justice. O'Connor's vote often carried the day on the closely divided Court--and she typically sided with liberals on social issues like abortion, affirmative action, and religion. Alito is more conservative, and I expect to see the Court turn to the right on those and other issues.
Book Description
Drawing on unprecedented access to the Supreme Court justices and their inner circles, acclaimed ABC News legal correspondent Jan Crawford Greenburg offers an explosive, newsbreaking account of one of the most momentous political watersheds in recent American history.
Over the past decade, the central front of America's bitter culture wars has been the titanic battle over the composition and direction of the United States Supreme Court. During that period, no journalist has been closer to the action on the ground-the ideas, the politics, the personalities, the gamesmanship-than ABC News correspondent Jan Crawford Greenburg. Now, in Supreme Conflict, Greenburg draws on all of her formidable reportorial resources to give a brilliant, vivid, astonishingly unvarnished account of the struggle for the soul of the highest court in the land.
Greenburg picks up the plot with the Rehnquist Court, which, despite having seven Republican nominees, proved deeply disappointing to conservatives hoping to reverse decades of progressive rulings on key social issues. She reveals for the first time the real story behind a series of failed Republican nominations that enraged the American conservative movement and left it seething with frustration and resolve not to squander future opportunities. Enter: George W. Bush and the setting of the stage for a full-blown conservative counterrevolution. Supreme Conflict contains entirely fresh perspectives across the entire sweep of its story, from the conservative movement's early fumbles with the nominations of justices Anthony Kennedy and David Souter to its crowning successes with the appointments of justices Roberts and Alito. The book breaks news in its revelations about the effect of Chief Justice Rehnquist's illness on the process; on the truth behind Harriet Miers's disastrous nomination and how it was really scuttled; and on how decades of bruising battles led to the triumph of the conservative agenda with the appointment of two of its leading judicial exponents. Through the entire dramatic story, rich in character and conflict, Greenburg never loses sight of the gargantuan stakes in this struggle, the opposing ideological agendas at play.
The story Jan Crawford Greenburg tells is that of the fulcrum event of our time, the massive coordinated campaign to move the Supreme Court in a very different direction, to a more limited and restrictive role in American government. A masterpiece of old-fashioned gumshoe reportage, rich storytelling, and penetrating analysis, Supreme Conflict will be the definitive account of the most consequential shift in the use of American judicial power in almost one hundred years.
Customer Reviews:
A terrible disappointment..........2007-10-08
I thought, considering the book's title and that this reporter touted her access to nine justices, that this would detail the inner dynamics and interpersonal relationships of the justices and their clerks, like The Brethren. Instead, it was a laborious and too-detailed factual account of process the Executive and Legislative Branches used to select this court.
I see strong bias on the part of the author, who as a reporter, hopes to keep "inside access." She veritably fawns over Alito, in an effort to ingratiate herself with him and his family while, in contrast, she trashes the reclusive Souter, and the presumably uncooperative Kennedy.
Only 20% of this book was worthwhile reading.
In A Class By Itself.......2007-09-30
In all respects -- writing, research, organization, balance -- this is the best book on the Supreme Court. To be sure, there'll be other (and perhaps better) books written on this always fascinating institution. For now, however, it positively towers over its competition. I've read (and enjoyed) them all -- Woodward/Armstrong's, Toobin's, Rosen's -- but Jan Crawford Greenburg's "Supreme Conflict" is, to reiterate my title, in a class by itself.
Highly recommended.
Decent book for non-lawyers.......2007-09-27
Most legal reporting in the mainstream media stinks. Either non-lawyers miss the point of cases, or lawyers fail to translate that point to a level where the average person can understand. "Supreme Conflict" is an exception. This book focuses more on the personalities and dynamics of the justices, and on the nomination and selection process, than on particular cases. The tales of how certain people are selected for the Court, and how they mesh with the other justices once they have arrived, are interesting glimpses into a world rarely seen by outsiders. Some reviewers point out, rightly, that "Supreme Conflict" does not hash out particular cases in detail. But that's not the kind of book this is.
Other reviewers contend "Supreme Conflict" is too sympathetic to the right. That leaves me scratching my head, given the account of how Bush Jr. picked Harriet Miers as a nominee. True to form, Bush Jr. got some kind of gut feeling and couldn't be talked out of it by reason, and you see what that got him. We also see the mechanism of how the great right-wing spin machine is deployed for, or against, particular nominees. None of this is particularly flattering for Republicans.
This is a good companion to "The Brethren," by Bob Woodward, a similarly-good popular level book about the Supreme Court of an earlier era. Most libraries will have this book, and it is worth checking out if you're interested in the Supreme Court but not so interested as to add "Supreme Conflict" to your permanent collection.
Fascinating.......2007-09-06
Do not start reading this book if you have to go to work or to school the next day. I read it in two evenings because it was so interesting.
Greenburg is to be congratulated for getting interviews with so many of the judges and for doing so much research and confirmation. The interest builds, and the final chapters on the Roberts, Miers, and Alito nominations are riveting, even though we know the final outcome. But what we didn't know is all the behind the scenes work.
I think Greenburg was fair to the justices and to those in the White House involved in the nomination process. She tells what they did well and what they did poorly. And some of the mistakes were monumental (Bush believing Sununu when he said that Souter was a conservative, for instance). Just from reading the book, it would be difficult to guess Greenburg's own political leanings.
Many things are surprising in this book. Justice O'Connor did not really know much about constitutional law when nominated. Clarence Thomas influenced Scalia's vote more than vice-versa during the first term. And liberal Democrats, more than anyone else, are responsible for Roberts and especially Alito, two conservative white males, being on the court.
Valuable Insights but Lacking on the So-Called "Liberals".......2007-08-09
I don't know who Greenburg's sources are, but this is a highly readable "behind the scenes" account of the political maneuvers that have influenced the selection of U.S. Supreme Court Justices from Reagan's appointees through the present. Her insights on Kennedy's jurisprudence and on O'Connor's, Roberts's, and Alito's confirmation hearings are particularly illuminating.
Greenburg is on less stable ground when it comes to the so-called "liberals." Only one chapter is devoted to Clinton's appointees, Ginsburg and Breyer, even though their selection can be seen as relative triumphs for the liberal to moderate vote that rejects the kind of judicial activism that radical conservatives like Scalia and Thomas uphold (and which Roberts and Alito tacitly support, unfortunately).
Greenburg also constantly reminds us that George H.W. Bush's appointment of David Souter is seen by many conservatives as one of the "biggest political blunders" by a Republican president in the twentieth century. While that may be true, among conservatives, I would have liked Greenburg to analyze Souter's appointment and subsequent rulings more even-handedly. Souter, in fact, is a traditional New England Republican who doesn't believe in legislating religious and moral issues from the bench. In my estimation, it's not that Souter is or became "liberal" but rather that the Court has become, under Rehnquist and now under Roberts, especially conservative, even radically so.
Still, Greenburg's book is a great survey of recent Supreme Court history and necessary reading for anyone who continues to deny the influence of politics on the shaping of law in this country.
Customer Reviews:
Juvenile Justice In America.......2002-04-02
I feel that this is a very helpful book of reference on Todays Topic of Juveniles.
Book Description
First published in 1981, Valuing a Business is today the world's most widely followed valuation reference. As more professional associations than ever offer valuation education and credentials, this Fourth Eidtion - with 10 new chapters that significantly expand the book's scope - promises to appeal to an even broader market. This easy-to-use reference features increased emphasis on vlauation court cases and decisions; new information on arbitration and mediation; updated data on stock option valuation; and much more.
Download Description
This easy-to-use reference features increased emphasis on valuation court cases and decisions; new information on arbitration and mediation; updated data on stock option valuation; and much more.
Customer Reviews:
A bit hard to understand.......2004-12-02
I had an older edition of this book, which wasn't very helpful, so I bought the new one hoping it was an improvement, but came away rather disappointed because, for an instructional manual, this one is hard to follow. Apparently, the authors have been in the valuation business for a long time, but it's not always easy to translate experience effectively into words. For most, this is a how-to project with potentially big consequences, so the instructions should be more clear than this. I liked "Unlocking the Value of Your Business" as an alternative. Once I read that book, I understood better what these guys were talking about.
This is a Terrific Resource for Practitioners Not Investors.......2004-09-16
I am a lawyer who has tried valuation cases and this book is a terrific resource for valuation experts and attorneys. I used it to defend and to attack witnesses. It is respected. It is used at the Federal Judicial Center as training for judges on these issues. It is not at all appropriate for people who are trying to value companies for investment purposes.
Super.......2003-01-08
This book, guide, reference, ... or what ever you name it. is essential for all business, financial and investment guides.
An Excellent Private Equity Valuation Primer.......2002-04-08
I have found Mr. Pratt's book to be an outstanding and practical general reference guide to valuing privately-held businesses. Due to the book's breadth of material and balanced focus on both the science and art of valuation, I have found "Valuing A Business" to be an excellent professional reference for anyone entering the field of business valuation. I highly recommend it.
In addition to the common "science side" valuation techniques, issues, and approaches that are found in many valuation textbooks, Pratt provides unique, valuable insight into the "art side" of valuation. The book also includes real life project execution considerations for litigation support, expert witness testimony, and taxation. "Valuing A Business" offers solid information to assist a practitioner in building a quality framework for conducting a comprehensive private company valuation.
Good technique, directed at the professional practitioner.......2001-10-18
I take issue with the reviewer who suggested that Tom Copeland/McKinsey's book "Valuation" is better than this one or is more directed at valuaing big businesses. ... On the other hand, it should be said that valuation techniques do not differ between big companies and small companies (especially if big/small companies are publically traded). Valuation techniques vary depending on (a) what sort of asset is being valued (public equity, vs. private equity, vs. business assets as a whole, etc) and (b) why valuation is being done (for M&A, litigation between business partners, divorce, ESOPs, for equity investment/divestment). If an investor is valuing a $50 Billion public company and a $50 million public company, the technique used for both is (probably) the same.
If anything, this book does an excellent job in reminding us of the diversity of valuation techniques in use, and the diversity of reasons for doing valuations. Given the frequency with which privately held companies are bought, one would think that knowing how to value companies whose stock is not publically traded is useful for general businesspeople, not just accountants and attorneys. But if you absolutely insist that you just want to know how to value publically traded companies and don't give a hoot for calculating "private equity discounts" or "minority shareholder discounts", then I would recommend Aswath Damodaran's books "Damodaran on Valuation", "The Dark Side of Valuation" or "Investment Valuation". Damodaran, professor of Finance at NYU, actually uses the same techniques taught here, but applied to public equity investing and with different names (for example, what is called the "Market approach" here is just what Damodaran calls "relative valuation" in a different context).
Book Description
Best-selling AMERICA'S COURTS AND THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM focuses on the dynamics of the court by introducing the concept of the "courthouse workgroup" and the interrelated relationship of the three main actors?judge , prosecutor, and defense attorney?thus illustrating the law in action, not just the theories and facts. Neubauer also uses a myriad of pedagogical devices that bring the court process to life for students, including A Day in Court, Controversy, and Case Close-Up boxes. This text has become the market-leader in large part because of its comprehensive coverage, its focus on the dynamics of the process, and its pedagogical features. Neubauer emphasized key aspects of the law, particularly law on the books, law in action, and law in controversy, to provide students with a clear focus. The Eighth Edition is filled with timely new content and now is accompanied by an exciting new Student Companion CD-ROM that features Court TV® videos?FREE with every new copy of the text!
Book Description
A leading Supreme Court expert recounts the personal and philosophical rivalries that forged our nation’s highest court and continue to shape our daily lives
The Supreme Court is the most mysterious branch of government, and yet the Court is at root a human institution, made up of very bright people with very strong egos, for whom political and judicial conflicts often become personal.
In this compelling work of character-driven history, Jeffrey Rosen recounts the history of the Court through the personal and philosophical rivalries on the bench that transformed the law—and by extension, our lives. The story begins with the great Chief Justice John Marshall and President Thomas Jefferson, cousins from the Virginia elite whose differing visions of America set the tone for the Court’s first hundred years. The tale continues after the Civil War with Justices John Marshall Harlan and Oliver Wendell Holmes, who clashed over the limits of majority rule. Rosen then examines the Warren Court era through the lens of the liberal icons Hugo Black and William O. Douglas, for whom personality loomed larger than ideology. He concludes with a pairing from our own era, the conservatives William H. Rehnquist and Antonin Scalia, only one of whom was able to build majorities in support of his views.
Through these four rivalries, Rosen brings to life the perennial conflict that has animated the Court—between those justices guided by strong ideology and those who forge coalitions and adjust to new realities. He illuminates the relationship between judicial temperament and judicial success or failure. The stakes are nothing less than the future of American jurisprudence.
Customer Reviews:
A Concise History of Politics vs Law.......2007-10-06
Recently there have been many good books available about the Supreme Court. For a quick, no-nonsense straight to the heart of the matter history of Supreme Court, this is the book. A history of the Supreme Court derived from its major decisions and its major dissenters. The author shows that often justices that may be on the dissenting side of Supreme Court decisions are sometimes justices that are ahead of their time. Their lonely decisions often become basics to the American way of life in a later era. The Author, Jeff Rosen also relays a life's lesson to Supreme Court Justices, that in the interplay between majority vs. dissenters decisions, no matter how dedicated, wise, or oracle-like a justice appears, history bears out that the justices that "play ball", fraternizes, cajoles, and displays a good nature seem to win out. In other words the Law is not just the Law, the decisions cannot be divorced from the political impetus that brought them to the court and the most successful Justices are the most political Justices. Nothing underscores this more than the chapter on Justice Holmes and Justice Harlan. Justice Holmes was an ivory tower type justice and his reputation is somewhat revered today. Justice Harlan is lesser known, but the track record shows that modern American life revolves around decisions he made and that Holmes has been surpassed in almost all his major decisions.
A very rewarding book, that will make the reader feel that in one book you can gain an understanding of what make the supreme court tick, and some of the twists ands turns it has taken in its history
How the Court Works.......2007-06-18
Jeffrey Rosen's accessible and engaging companion book to the PBS series offers not only a fine introduction to the U.S. Supreme Court (and many of the most important cases it's decided in its history) but also a perspective from which to understand the Court as an institution. This perspective is tantamount to Rosen's thesis: that "judicial temperament" is a quality possessed by the Court's most distinguished justices, those who subordinate their ideological leanings to the deliberative and practical process of establishing legal consensus.
Rosen illustrates his thesis with four case studies: Marshall and Jefferson (not a justice); Harlan and Holmes; Black and Douglas; Rehnquist and Scalia. In each case one justice is seen as embracing judicial temperament while the other (or Jefferson, in the first chapter) is cast as something of an ideological maverick, a flamboyant but ultimately less influential constitutional thinker. Like one reviewer here, I found the questions raised by such pairings to be productive rather than reductive: Rosen is making a legal-historical argument here, and so reading his history of the Supreme Court is necessarily an exercise in critical interpretation.
The chapters on the twentieth-century Court are excellent, with Rosen showing how the liberal-leaning Hugo Black and the conservative-leaning William Rehnquist had more in common with each other (in terms of judicial temperament) than with their respective colleagues: William O. Douglas and Antonin Scalia. Here Rosen parses the legacies of Black and Rehnquist by showing how their restrained judicial character helped them produce well-crafted decisions that advanced the Court's legitimacy in the public eye.
Douglas and Scalia, on the other hand, were/are so committed to the purity of their ideological beliefs that, whatever one thinks of their individual decisions (and I am decidedly aligned with Douglas over Scalia in this regard), one has to come to terms with the fact that their jurisprudence will not have a lasting influence on the law of the land. Douglas and Scalia are seen as larger-than-life personalities, self-aggrandizing justices who rarely spoke for the Court as such.
Again, you might agree or disagree with the specifics of Rosen's argument and framing of his historical examples. But the survey presented here is a solid, general introduction to Supreme Court history. And with judicial temperament Rosen gives us a lens through which we might view that history, and understand better exactly how the Court works.
Good History - Not Enough Catch.......2007-05-24
For a look into some of the most well known figures in the Supreme Court, this book does a fantastic job. From in-depth analysis of their personalities to little anecdotes on each Justice, the Author clearly knows his history.
It's a tad short, and I think the specific cases could have been covered in greater detail. While it was informative, it didn't have that something special that had me anxious to keep reading. At times, I felt like I was reading a history book.
If you're someone looking to get some background into the Supreme Court and some of the characters that shaped it, this is a good book to start with. You may not feel completely entertained, but you will feel smarter after reading this book.
The real Justice League of America.......2007-05-14
It's one of the fundamental principles of the U.S. Constitution that the three branches of government are more-or-less equal, with checks and balances assuring that no branch takes over. The reality, of course, is different: at times - particularly in the 1800s - the Congress was the more powerful branch, while at other times -especially recently - the Presidency has taken the reins. The judicial branch, however, has always been in third place; although it makes a difference at times, it rarely is more visible than its "coequals". Nonetheless, there are times that the judicial branch - and in particular, the Supreme Court - has assumed a critical role in history.
Jeffrey Rosen's The Supreme Court is not so much a history of the institution as a study as to how certain personalities affected the Court. He focuses on four such rivalries that dictated not only the direction of the Court but also the direction of the country. The first rivalry (and the only one featuring a non-Court figure) is Thomas Jefferson and John Marshall. These two embodies the two principal political philosophies of the early United States: Republicanism and Federalism. Unlike previous Chief Justices, Marshall really defined the Court and made it an important part of the government, most notably with the Marbury v. Madison decision. Since Marshall differed with Jefferson on many issues, this set the two branches at odds with one another.
The next rivalry is John Marshall Harlan and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., a pairing that is probably the most obscure to the modern reader. Holmes, with his nickname "The Great Dissenter" earned a reputation based on his dissents in some free speech cases, but often had much less sympathetic rulings, such as his opposition to civil rights and his support of eugenics. Harlan, on the other hand, was more forward-thinking, and notably dissented on Plessy v. Ferguson, the Court decision that - after Dred Scott - is probably the darkest mark on the institution's history.
The third section deals with Hugo Black and William Douglas. Unlike the previous pairings, these two were politically of a similar bent, but they still had different judicial philosophies, with Black being the sounder reasoner and Douglas being somewhat more free-wheeling. Douglas's presidential ambitions, which never really amounted to much, also affected his decision-making. Similarly, the fourth section deals with two Justices with similar politics yet different philosophies: William Rehnquist and Antonin Scalia. While Rehnquist would often try for consensus, Scalia is more absolute in his beliefs and doesn't really seem to care who he rankles.
In each pairing, Rosen casts one person as hero (Marshall, Harlan, Black and Rehnquist) and one as villain (Jefferson, Holmes, Douglas and Scalia). Of course, things are not really that simple and Rosen recognizes flaws in the heroes and virtues in the villains; perhaps it is better not to use the heroes-and-villains analogy at all, but it is clear Rosen favors one in each rivalry. This has less to do with politics than with technique: Rosen favors Justices who can promote harmony within the Court and can create rulings with real potency to them. Rulings that go 5-4 are not nearly as strong as those decided unanimously, and are more likely to be eventually reversed.
In the final section, Rosen offers an early analysis of new Chief Justice John Roberts, one that is generally positive. Roberts, Rosen believes, seems to have learned from the better Chief Justices (a group in which Rosen would include Marshall, Warren and Rehnquist) as to how to run the Supreme Court. Rosen's writing is insightful, clear and reasonably objective (in the sense that he doesn't seem to favor either the political right or left). This book is a good, alternative way at looking at the history and structure of the Supreme Court.
Supreme Court.......2007-05-07
An excellent book. If I were still teaching Constitutional Law at the college level, I would use some or all of it in class to show that law is interpreted by "real people." I think anybody would find it interesting, but lawyers and law students should find it fascinating.
Average customer rating:
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Rural Women Battering and the Justice System: An Ethnography (SAGE Series on Violence against Women)
Neil Websdale
Manufacturer: Sage Publications, Inc
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ASIN: 0761908528
Release Date: 1997-11-11 |
Book Description
Addressing a significant void in the extant literature on the topic of domestic violence,
Rural Woman Battering and the Justice System presents a thorough and arresting look at the experiences of battered women in rural communities. While living in the rural areas of Kentucky, Neil Websdale conducted his ethnographic research, and he situated the voices of rural battered women at the center of his ethnography. He clearly demonstrates how rural patriarchy and the insidious "good ol’ boy network" of law enforcement and local politics sustain and reproduce the subordinate, vulnerable, isolated position of many rural women. Taking into account that traditional patterns of intervention can often put women in isolated communities at further risk, the author recommends a coordinated multiagency approach to rural battering that is spearheaded by state feminist agencies. The chapter on the difficulties of an educated male researcher working with rural battered women offers a definite methodological plus. Illuminating and accessible,
Rural Woman Battering and the Justice System makes a most important and timely contribution to the field.
An excellent training resource for anyone working with battered women, especially in rural areas,
Rural Woman Battering and the Justice System is highly recommended for law enforcement and criminal justice professionals, practitioners, advocates, shelter personnel, and advanced students in related courses of study, as well as academics and researchers.
Book Description
This current insider's look at what policing means today is ideal for anyone interested in learning who the police are, what they do, and how they do it. INTRODUCTION TO POLICING features comprehensive coverage of all major topics, emphasizing today's most current technology, the newest statistical data, and important new directions such as homeland defense and community policing. A "must read" for anyone considering a career in law enforcement, this book gives you straightforward information about the many rewards, and the often intense stress, that are part of police work.
Customer Reviews:
Disregard "navylady's" review.......2007-04-18
The previous review by navylady is of the 3rd edition of this book, and the reviewer makes some very good points about that edition. However, it should not be included here as a review of the 4th edition because all of her gripes about the text are limited to the 3rd edition and these issues are not present in the 4th edition of this text. I teach Introduction to Policing at the university level and I use this book. After looking at many other policing textbooks, I feel this is the most comprehensive and inclusive of all of them. It is a great text for any intro level policing class.
This textbook stinks..........2006-08-06
This book is unorganized, out-of-date, too focused on New York City, and on every other page promotes the authors and their careers...On page 7 they are telling you how much has changed with the computer age, and the internet, and one of the authors tells you he went to grade school and they used quill pens and fountain jars...okay, I didn't need to know that. It was so annoying that by page 14, I was going to submit to them a list of improvements, but it would have been EXTENSIVE! From there on just gritted my teeth and got through it...Good luck! You'll be really tired of the references to the Trade City Bombing, and NYC in general, by the end of it!
Book Description
Marie Antoinette has always stood as an icon of supreme style, but surprisingly none of her biographers have paid sustained attention to her clothes. In Queen of Fashion, Caroline Weber shows how Marie Antoinette developed her reputation for fashionable excess, and explains through lively, illuminating new research the political controversies that her clothing provoked. Weber surveys Marie Antoinettes "Revolution in Dress," covering each phase of the queens tumultuous life, beginning with the young girl, struggling to survive Versailless rigid traditions of royal glamour (twelve-foot-wide hoopskirts, whalebone corsets that crushed her organs). As queen, Marie Antoinette used stunning, often extreme costumes to project an image of power and wage war against her enemies. Gradually, however, she began to lose her hold on the French when she started to adopt "unqueenly" outfits (the provocative chemise) that, surprisingly, would be adopted by the revolutionaries who executed her. Webers queen is sublime, human, and surprising: a sometimes courageous monarch unwilling to allow others to determine her destiny. The paradox of her tragic story, according to Weber, is that fashion -- the vehicle she used to secure her triumphs -- was also the means of her undoing. Webers book is not only a stylish and original addition to Marie Antoinette scholarship, but also a moving, revelatory reinterpretation of one of historys most controversial figures.
Customer Reviews:
Not sure whether it wants to be a biography or fashion.......2007-08-27
I found queen of fashion to be not enough queen and not enough fashion. It pairs a less than adequate biography of Marie Antionette with a smattering of observations on how her fashion choices both represented her role as well as influenced events around her.
What I found problematic was that the fashion highlights jumped around in terms of time periods. There would be a detailed explanation of a time, then a gap of several years before another touching base. I'm not sure if this was due to a lack of source material for the intervening period, but it made for very choppy reading.
If you've read a lot on Marie Antionette, you can skim this to pick up the fashion pieces. If you haven't read a lot about her, pick up another biography first.
This might have worked better as a series of essays than as an overall biography.
Disappointing -- 2&1/2 stars.
what a great read.......2007-07-26
So I picked this up just because the title intrigued me and what a pleasant suprise! It is very readable, interesting and balanced. You won't regret this purchase.
Queen of Fashion.......2007-06-29
I've found that if you want to get a really good feel for the history of a period, read something like this book that concentrates on some interesting aspect of a major figure. An example (besides this well written book) is A Scented Palace by DeFeydeau, which also has amazing insights and stories that you never read in more biographical type treatments. For instance, an anecdote in this book about how Marie Antionette gave her jeweled fan to a pretty village girl, that I never heard anywhere else, really colors the way I now perceive her. But it's an astonishingly "like-you-are-there" inside look at life at Versailles during a (or the) most interesting period in it's history...
queen of fashion.......2007-06-27
I haven't got a chance to read the entire book yet but it is very good and interesting. It is especially useful if you are a Marie Antoinette fanatic or history buff. This was a package that got lost in shipping and It only took one day to get a replacement one. I was surprised at how fast the costumer service was and very pleased.
Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution.......2007-06-04
This is a well-researched, engaging, and poignant read. When is Weber's next book coming out?! I'll purchase for sure.
Average customer rating:
- Thriller--not a mystery or detective novel
- Mystery
- Good but not great: An audiobook review
- Good, but with some inconsistencies
- Quantity has seriously eclipsed quality
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Four Blind Mice
James Patterson
Manufacturer: Little, Brown
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The Big Bad Wolf: A Novel (Alex Cross novels)
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Pop Goes the Weasel
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London Bridges (Alex Cross Novel)
ASIN: 0316693006
Release Date: 2002-11-18 |
Amazon.com
In this latest thriller from perennial bestselling author James Patterson, Washington cop Alex Cross gets involved in his partner's effort to save the life of an old Army buddy who's facing execution for a horrendous and inexplicable murder spree in North Carolina. The Army's evidence against Sergeant Ellis Cooper, a decorated Vietnam vet, is overwhelming, which isn't surprising since it's all been planted by a quartet of killers whose reason for framing the erstwhile hero isn't revealed until long after they are. The big secret is who set the murderers loose, and in true cliffhanger fashion, Patterson keeps it under wraps until the very end. Meanwhile, his usual blend of action, violence, fast pacing and uninspired-though-serviceable prose prevail, and will probably do so all the way to the top of the bestseller lists. --Jane Adams
Book Description
Alex Cross is on his way to resign from the Washington Police when his partner John Sampson shows up at his door. One of Sampson's oldest friends has been framed for murder and, worse yet, is subject to the insular laws of the U.S. Army. The evidence is strong enough to send him to the gas chamber.
Cross and Sampson plunge into a case where military codes of honor conceal dark currents of revenge and ambition, and the men controlling the moves have the best weapons and training the world can offer. Drawing on their years of street training and an almost telepathic mutual trust, Cross and Sampson go deep into military lines to confront the most terrifying-and lethal-killer they have ever encountered.
Customer Reviews:
Thriller--not a mystery or detective novel.......2007-07-14
The mystery/detective novel was a rather pure form in its earlier days. The focus was not on the murder itself and the detailed agony of the victim. In fact, the crime was disposed of rather quickly. The story was how the detective, through investigation and logic, revealed the murderer. There was no sex, no outright violence and certainly no sadism.
Somewhere along the line the detective novel evolved into the "thriller," in which the theme ranged far and wide. In most novels by James Patterson there is a pervasive vein of sadism, as there is in "Four Blind Mice." Ex-rangers from the U.S. Army, men who had fought in Viet Nam, continue their killing for hire and for pleasure in America. The sadism is very detailed and has nothing to do with the plot itself. For example, there is a lengthy and gruesome description of how the rangers tortured and killed a woman suspected of being Viet Cong. Perhaps it is to show that the men were not nice fellows, but the fact that they murdered people at all should establish that.
The detectives who trail the killers are bedroom hoppers, narrated with rather specific detail. Again, the sex has nothing to do with the plot, with tracking down the killers. One has to suspect that the sex is to titilate the sort of reader who can be titilated or manipulated by this.
The actual plot is not of much interest, nor is how the criminals were caught. What sells the Patterson books is the violence, the sadism, the sex--and short chapters for those with short attention spans. And because of this, I suspect the Patterson books will not be long remembered. Readers still read Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Philo Vance, etc., and they will be doing so when the Cross books are in the dustbin.
Mystery .......2007-07-03
Alex Cross the mystery solver. Great read. Fast moving and exciting. Never go wrong with James Patterson reading
Good but not great: An audiobook review.......2007-05-04
After reading a few reviews, it sounds like the audio version actually helps the story a bit. The two narrators are both quite good, with the exception that some of the bad guys sound too much like one another.
I am glad to get back to the world of Alex Cross. I have read or heard 3 other Patterson books this year and have been sorely disappointed with two. I only liked one (Jester) and I was looking forward to getting back to comfortable ground with Alex Cross.
The strength of Patterson's Cross books is the realistic conversations - the rhythms, cadences, colloquialisms and vocabulary sound right. They sound so right that I am reminded of a personal story. Way back before Patterson's picture was plastered all over the back of every one of his books, I used to work in a used book store. The Alex Cross books started filtering in and Mrs. Rivers, the assistant manager and an elderly African-American woman (also an avid mystery/thriller reader) placed Patterson's books in the African-American authors section. She was shocked when a book came in with his face on the back. She commented that she never would have believed that a white man could have pulled that off so well. He still pulls it off.
However, the story flows in a herky-jerky manner. Sampson and Cross gleen clues from things that should not provide clues. For example, while in Raleigh, NC investigating an old ritualistic multiple murder, they hear that a single prostitute was killed. No details are provided of the prostitute's murder, but still they know it is connected. How?
Patterson is intent on moving the personal lives of Cross and Sampson forward. That is appropriate. At times, though, it felt as if that was the only part of the story he really put a lot of thought into. The rest seemed to be rather sloppily tossed in there - the connections were loose, characters are introduced than dropped.
So, my grade: B-
Good conversation. Like the characters. My suggestion: Slow down "James Patterson, Inc." and take the time to work out some of the kinks and make these books better.
Good, but with some inconsistencies.......2007-04-07
I picked this up at an airport before an international flight. I've read a few Patterson books recently. This was not quite as good as some of the others. Part of the problem might have been me reading them out of chronological order (this is another Alex Cross book). I didn't really care for the ending. There also seemed to be some technical and story inconsistencies.
Quantity has seriously eclipsed quality.......2007-01-23
While I have read numerous books by James Patterson, only a few have been part of his "Alex Cross" series. The Cross books have a mechanical, mass-produced feel to them. However, with Patterson churning out something like 5-6 books a year, that's hardly a surprise. I don't mind someone being prolific, but it's almost gotten to where he should open up a chain of drive-through windows and donate a portion of his profits to re-seeding forests. We're getting true pulp fiction of the distinctly hastily-written-and-not-well-researched variety. There isn't nearly the attention to detail in these novels as in, say, a Michael Connelly crime thriller. There were also way too many implausibilities in this book for me to take it very seriously - even as fanciful entertainment.
The "four blind mice" in this book are three Army Rangers who served together in Vietnam (and a fourth 'mouse' that is revealed at the end of the book). Upon their return, the 3 continue to kill for both profit - as contract hit men - and fun (they're deranged "good 'ol boys" who truly get their kicks from killing even when no money is involved). But the amount of killing they do - and their complete lack of caution to keep from being caught - simply defies reason. These guys would have been caught within a week by even the most dysfunctional police force in the country. And they're supposed to be "professionals"? Uh, right.
A few examples:
1. They abduct a prostitute, let her out in the woods, and then "hunt her down" for sport before killing her. Just as they are about to start their hunt after releasing her, a police cruiser stops to ask the 3 men what they are doing on the side of the road with their lights off. They give an answer that satisfies the cop and he drives off. There is NO WAY that when the prostitute's body was later found, the cop wouldn't have tied it to the 3 guys on the side of the road and launched a major manhunt.
2. Another cop later pulls them over and they shoot him. Then, one of them gets in the car and simply drives it into the bushes on the side of the road to hide it. No attempt to even wear gloves before touching the inside of the cop car or the steering wheel.
3. The men go to a house full of call-girls and kill everyone inside. Again, no attempt to conceal fingerprints on doorknobs, clothes, furniture, etc.
Professional killers are simply not this cavalier when it comes to covering their tracks. With such huge deficiencies in the details, it was awfully hard to take Mr. Patterson's fiction seriously in this book. It was like these characters had been on one continuous joy ride / killing spree for the last 20 years without getting caught. With guys this back-slapping careless? I'm sorry, it just ain't gonna happen.
To be honest, there wasn't much here in the way of either mystery or thrill. In fact, the only real mystery is where Cross's long-distance romance with Jamilla is going to eventually end up.
Will I continue to read books by this author? Yes, but I won't generally expect too much from them - especially the crime thrillers. I enjoyed his recent books more in the genre of Nicholas Sparks better. One was called "Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas" and the other "Sam's Letters to Jennifer." Because they didn't rely on much of anything requiring research or technical detail - just books about human relationships - they were far better and far more plausible reads.
Patterson has the imagination to tell some very good stories. The problem is usually in the execution, not the story itself. I'm afraid quantity is definitely eclipsing quality as he attempts to churn out a book every few months. I'm not sure what's driving him to produce books like a machine gun - he's certainly made his millions with so many bestsellers and several movies. In fact, his books have grossed over $1 billion - so you do the math. It's astronomical even if he gets only 10% of that. One would think that as he near retirement age and with all his success, he'd take the advice that Nana constantly gives to Alex Cross in this book: slow down, don't work so much, and don't be so driven. I'd certainly like him to slow down enough to write better books.
Average customer rating:
- NICE WORK IF YOU CAN SEE IT
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Constitutional Law and Politics, Sixth Edition, Volume 2
David M. O'Brien
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0393925668 |
Book Description
Now in its Sixth Edition, Constitutional Law and Politics is the authoritative casebook for the study of the Supreme Court and its role in politics past and present. This comprehensive text presents a wide range of excerpts and opinions from the most significant Supreme Court cases and provides the contextual material students need to interpret their historical significance. The Sixth Edition adds material on dozens of important recent cases, current through June 2004, and features carefully updated and refined pedagogy.
Customer Reviews:
NICE WORK IF YOU CAN SEE IT.......2007-02-23
Professor O'Brien must surely be making valuable contributions with his numerous works, and this one should have been most helpful to me. But he or his publisher have opted for pretty, pale grey print -- almost impossible for middle-aged eyes to read without strain. I had ordered five of his books from Amazon and reluctantly returned them all.
Books:
- Textbook of Regional Anesthesia and Acute Pain Management
- The Anatomy of Motive : The FBI's Legendary Mindhunter Explores the Key to Understanding and Catching Violent Criminals
- The Babes in the Wood
- The Clinton Crack-Up: The Boy President's Life After the White House
- The Creation of Feminist Consciousness: From the Middle Ages to Eighteen-seventy (Women & History)
- The Day Before Midnight
- The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries (P.S.)
- The New Eating Right for a Bad Gut : The Complete Nutritional Guide to Ileitis, Colitis, Crohn's Disease, and Inflammatory Bowel Disease
- The Price Of Silence
- The Real Holy Grail: An Orthodox Response to Dan Brown's Deceptions in Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code
Books Index
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