Political Law

The concept of law lies at the heart of our social and political life. Legal philosophy, or jurisprudence, explores the notion of law and its role in society, illuminating its meaning and its relation to the universal questions of justice, rights, and morality. In this Very Short Introduction audiobook, Raymond Wacks analyzes the nature and purpose of the legal system and the practice by courts, lawyers, and judges.

The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, in 1789. Originally comprising seven articles, it delineates the national frame and constraints of government.

Nearly every aspect of our criminal justice system encourages defendants-whether innocent or guilty-to take a plea deal. Punishment Without Trial showcases how plea bargaining has undermined justice at every turn and across socioeconomic and racial divides. It forces the hand of lawyers, judges, and defendants, turning our legal system into a ruthlessly efficient mass incarceration machine that is dogging our jails and pun­ishing citizens.

In Lady Justice, Dahlia Lithwick, one of the nation’s foremost legal commentators, illuminates these many heroes of the Trump years. From Sally Yates and Becca Heller, who fought the Muslim travel ban, to Roberta Kaplan, who sued the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, to Stacey Abrams, who worked to protect the voting rights of millions of Georgians, Lithwick dramatizes in thrilling detail the women lawyers who worked tirelessly to hold the line against the most chaotic presidency in living memory.

Originalism, the view that the meaning of a constitutional provision is fixed when it is adopted, was once the fringe theory of a few extremely conservative legal scholars but is now a well-accepted mode of constitutional interpretation. Noted legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky gives a comprehensive analysis of the problems that make originalism unworkable as a method of constitutional interpretation. He argues that the framers themselves never intended constitutional interpretation to be inflexible and shows how it is often impossible to know the "original intent" of any provision.

Can the president launch a nuclear attack without congressional approval? Is it ever a crime to criticize the president? Can states legally resist a president's executive order? Corey Brettschneider takes us on a deep dive into the US Constitution to answer questions that, in our tumultuous era, Americans are asking more than ever before. From the document itself and from history's pivotal court cases, we learn why certain powers were granted to the presidency, how the Bill of Rights limits those powers, and what "we the people" can do.

This is one of the true classics in world legal literature. Written by a master of law and language, it is a primary source book for anyone interested either in legal theory or political science. For the layman, it serves to clarify the very essence of the common law, the cornerstone of our present legal system.

Richard Painter and Peter Golenbock present a clear description of rule of law - arguably the single most important principle underlying our civilization. They also describe the abuses of power that have occurred throughout our nation's history. Beginning in Puritan New England with the infamous Salem Witch Trials, American Nero makes vivid stops at The Red Scare of the 1920s, Japanese-American internment, the McCarthy Era, and, much more recently, President Trump's attempt to violate the First Amendment by banning Muslims from entering the US.

In Where Tyranny Begins, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Rohde investigates the strategies Trump systematically used to turn the country's two most powerful law-enforcement agencies into his personal political weapons. Rohde also reveals how, during the Biden years, Justice Department non-partisan 1970s norms that Attorney General Merrick Garland reinforced inadvertently helped Trump, and could fail to deliver a trial and legal accountability by Election Day 2024.

This treatise comprises questions 90–97 of the Summa Theologica, in which St. Thomas Aquinas presents a philosophical analysis of the nature and structure of law. Believing that law achieves its results by imposing moral obligations rather than outright force on those subject to it, he proceeds to explore vital questions about the essence of law, kinds of law, effects of law, eternal law, natural law, human law, and changes in law.

Concealed Carry, Stand Your Ground Laws, and the Second Amendment Right to Bear Arms will teach you everything you need to know about your rights as a proud American citizen and how you can carry without concern. Many are not fully aware of the laws surrounding our rights. Don’t worry. We are here to help. The goal of this reading is to arm you with the confidence and knowledge you need to keep you well within your rights to not only conceal carry, but to be prepared for almost any situation and scenario when you do.

More than 40 years after President Johnson signed the landmark Fair Housing Act into law, residential segregation in America remains unresolved. Designed to help dismantle the nation’s racially divided housing patterns, the act has gone largely ignored by every presidential administration - Democrat and Republican alike - since 1968. In Living Apart, ProPublica investigates this failing.

In this profoundly important reassessment of constitutional interpretation, the eminent legal philosopher Hadley Arkes argues that "originalism" alone is an inadequate answer to the judicial activism of the left. Without recourse to "mere Natural Law"—the moral principles knowable by all—our legal and constitutional system is doomed to incoherence. Brilliant in its analysis, essential in its argument, Mere Natural Law is a must-listen for everyone who cares about the Constitution, morality, and the rule of law.

"The Law", Bastiat's most famous work, argues that the purpose of the law is the protection of individual rights, and that when governments adopt policies favoring particular industries or groups, the law becomes an instrument of injustice and oppression.

Say the name 'Enron' and most people believe they've heard all about the story that imperiled a presidency, destroyed a marketplace, and changed Washington and Wall Street forever. But in the hands of Kurt Eichenwald, the players we think we know and the business practices we think have been exposed are transformed into entirely new, and entirely gripping, material.

From Pulitzer Prize-winning American historian Joseph J. Ellis, the unexpected story of why the thirteen colonies, having just fought off the imposition of a distant centralized governing power, would decide to subordinate themselves anew.

Laws is Plato's last and longest dialogue. It is generally agreed that Plato wrote this dialogue as an older man, having failed in his effort in Syracuse on the island of Sicily to guide a tyrant's rule, instead having been thrown in prison.

At a time when politics in Britain is experiencing unprecedented turmoil, this Very Short Introduction audiobook examines the past, present, and possible future of British politics. Tony Wright puts current events into a longer and larger perspective, ranging from political ideas to political institutions and offering an overview of the British political tradition.

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer delivers an impassioned argument for the proper role of America’s highest judicial body. Examining historic and contemporary decisions by the Court, Breyer highlights the rulings that have bolstered public confidence as well as the missteps that have triggered distrust. What emerges is a unique approach - certain to be admired for years to come - to interpreting the Constitution.

The Supreme Court's decisions on constitutional rights are well known and much talked about. But individuals who want to defend those rights need something else as well: access to courts that can rule on their complaints. And on matters of access, the Court's record over the past generation has been almost uniformly hostile to the enforcement of individual citizens' constitutional rights.