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March 16, 2017|law professors, Legal Academy, Recapturing the Constitution, Stephen B. Presser

American Legal Thought in a Nutshell

by Mark Pulliam|1 Comment

dictionary in library

At first blush, Northwestern University law professor Stephen B. Presser’s just-released survey of legal education, Law Professors: Three Centuries of Shaping American Law, seems to lack a clearly defined mission. Presser, a self-described paleoconservative who says he was influenced by the journal Chronicles, where he has long served as legal affairs editor, has produced a treatise-length book (with 473 pages of text and nearly 1,400 footnotes) on a subject—legal academia—that many people regard as a bastion of left-wing ideology. Published by a scholarly press (West Academic) at a relatively hefty ($48) cover price, the book is aimed, at least in part, at a lay audience: “the general American public.”

Equal parts legal history, biography, and primer on jurisprudence, Law Professors defies categorization. Is it a text book, a reference work, a tutorial for pre-law students, a compilation of biographical profiles, a cautionary tale about the modern legal culture, or a synthesis of all the foregoing? The author calls it “a love letter to the teaching of law,” his vocation for over 40 years.

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Book Reviews

The Ford Restoration

by Kirk Emmert

Occupying the White House in unfavorable circumstances can make a President fall back on his best friend: the U.S. Constitution.

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John C. Calhoun, Madisonian Manqué

by Thomas W. Merrill

His institutional innovations were geared toward preserving slavery.

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Podcasts

The Solid Ground of Mere Civility: A Conversation with Teresa Bejan

A discussion with Teresa M. Bejan

Teresa Bejan discusses with us how early modern debates over religious toleration are an example of how we can disagree well.

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Leading a Worthy Life in a Scattered Time: A Conversation with Leon Kass

A discussion with Leon Kass

Leon Kass discusses Leading a Worthy Life.

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Eric Voegelin Studies: A Conversation with Charles Embry

A discussion with Charles Embry

What did "Don't immanentize the eschaton!" really mean? An intro podcast on the formidable mind of Eric Voegelin.

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Republican Virtue, Interrupted: A Conversation with Frank Buckley

A discussion with F.H. Buckley

The real conflict in our politics centers on reforming massive levels of public corruption.

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Law and Liberty’s focus is on the content, status, and development of law in the context of republican and limited government and the ways that liberty and law and law and liberty mutually reinforce the other. This site brings together serious debate, commentary, essays, book reviews, interviews, and educational material in a commitment to the first principles of law in a free society. Law and Liberty considers a range of foundational and contemporary legal issues, legal philosophy, and pedagogy.

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