Volokh Conspiracy Vacation Presents – 2022
The vacation season is now upon us! In case you are in search of potential presents for the loyal Volokh Conspiracy readers in your life, what might higher than books by VC bloggers?
The most recent VC-author e-book is David Bernstein’s Classified: The Untold Story of Racial Classification in America. It is an indispensable overview of the historical past and evolution of using racial classifications within the trendy US.
VC-ers additionally printed two books final yr: Randy Barnett’s The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment: Its Letter and Spirit (coauthored with Evan Bernick) and the revised version of personal Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom which formally got here out in early 2022). Barnett and Bernick’s e-book is a significant contribution to our understanding of what many contemplate the one most necessary modification to the Structure. It has already begun to reshape our understanding of the Fourteenth Modification.
Jonathan Adler’s edited quantity Marijuana Federalism was printed in 2020. It has the whole lot you ever wished to know in regards to the relationship between federalism and pot, and consists of contributions by main students in a number of totally different disciplines.
Free to Transfer makes the case for increasing alternatives for individuals to “vote with their ft” in federal programs, the non-public sector, and thru worldwide migration. I describe key benefits of foot voting over standard poll field voting, and clarify how breaking down obstacles to foot voting can massively improve freedom and alternative for hundreds of thousands of individuals all over the world. The revised version addresses a number of new points, together with arguments that migration should be constrained to forestall the unfold of harmful illnesses equivalent to Covid-19, claims that immigrants may generate a political backlash that threatens democracy, and the affect of distant work on foot voting. As with the unique version, I’m donating 50% of all royalties from the e-book to charities benefiting refugees, who – sadly – are in additional want than ever on this troublesome time.
Amongst my different favourite books by VC authors are Randy Barnett’s Restoring the Lost Constitution, David Bernstein’s Rehabilitating Lochner, Dale Carpenter, Flagrant Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v. Texas, Jonathan Adler’s Business and the Roberts Court, Josh Blackman’s Unprecedented and Unraveled, and Eugene Volokh, Academic Legal Writing.
Randy’s e-book is without doubt one of the greatest current works on originalism and constitutional legitimacy. It’s related to ongoing debates over authorized interpretation which might be positive to warmth up once more because the Supreme Court docket considers a number of main instances within the close to future. Rehabilitating Lochner explodes quite a few myths about one of many Court docket’s most reviled selections, one that continues to be related to present debates over “judicial activism.” Flagrant Conduct is a good account of a milestone within the historical past of homosexual rights. It offers helpful historic context for the still-ongoing battles over same-sex marriage and associated points.
Jonathan Adler’s edited quantity is a superb information to the problem of whether or not the Supreme Court docket favors enterprise pursuits, and the way we’d assess claims that it has a pro-business bias. Josh Blackman’s two books present priceless blow-by-blow accounts of the intensive litigation generated by the Reasonably priced Care Act. Lastly, Educational Authorized Writing is stuffed with helpful recommendation, whereas additionally by some means managing to make this typically unexciting subject attention-grabbing.
The Cambridge Handbook of Classical Liberal Thought (edited by Todd Henderson), consists of chapters by three totally different VC bloggers: Jonathan Adler on environmental coverage, David Bernstein on anti-discrimination regulation, and my very own contribution on “voting together with your ft.”
This listing will not be meant to slight necessary books by Ken Anderson, Sam Bray, Orin Kerr, David Kopel, David Post, and different VC bloggers. I’ve not mentioned them solely as a result of their topics are distant from my very own areas of experience.
Within the spirit of shameless self-promotion, I may even point out the expanded second version of my very own e-book Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter. My most up-to-date e-book earlier than Free to Transfer was Eminent Domain: A Comparative Perspective, co-edited with Iljoong Kim and Hojun Lee. It analyzes the use and abuse of eminent area in a wide range of nations all over the world.
My different books embody The Grasping Hand: Kelo v. City of New London and the Limits of Eminent Domain, which is the primary e-book by a authorized scholar about one of many Supreme Court docket’s most controversial trendy selections, and A Conspiracy Against Obamacare: The Volokh Conspiracy and the Health Care Case (coauthored with VC-ers Randy Barnett, Jonathan Adler, David Bernstein, Orin Kerr, and David Kopel). Conspiracy Towards Obamacare focuses on the VC’s vital function within the Obamacare litigation, and is the one e-book that features contributions by six totally different VC bloggers. In 2016, the College of Chicago Press printed an updated paperback edition of the The Greedy Hand.
I want all our readers a contented vacation season!