Legal Research

New Acquisitions in October 2009

Here is the list of new titles the Law Library acquired in October 2009. The list is on the Library's home page.

October Acquisitions List

In addition, here are a few highlighted titles of particular interest:

Reinier Kraakman ... [et al.]. The Anatomy of Corporate Law: A Comparative and Functional Approach. Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2009.
Reserve K1315 .A53 2009

Publisher's Description: The authors start from the premise that corporate (or company) law across jurisdictions addresses the same three basic agency problems: (1) the opportunism of managers vis-a-vis shareholders; (2) the opportunism of controlling shareholders vis-a-vis minority shareholders; and (3) the opportunism of shareholders as a class vis-a-vis other corporate constituencies, such as corporate creditors and employees. Every jurisdiction must address these problems in a variety of contexts, framed by the corporation's internal dynamics and its interactions with the product, labor, capital, and takeover markets. The authors' central claim, however, is that corporate (or company) forms are fundamentally similar and that, to a surprising degree, jurisdictions pick from among the same handful of legal strategies to address the three basic agency issues.

This book explains in detail how and why the principal European jurisdictions, Japan, and the United States sometimes select identical legal strategies to address a given corporate law problem, and sometimes make divergent choices. After an introductory discussion of agency issues and legal strategies, the book addresses the basic governance structure of the corporation, including the powers of the board of directors and the shareholders meeting. Itproceeds to creditor protection measures, related-party transactions, and fundamental corporate actions such as mergers and charter amendments. Finally, it concludes with an examination of friendly acquisitions, hostile
takeovers, and the regulation of the capital markets.

/ Steven H. Shiffrin. The Religious Left and Church-state Relations. Princeton : Princeton University Press, c2009.
KF4783 .S56 2009

Publisher's Description: In The Religious Left and Church-State Relations, noted constitutional law scholar Steven Shiffrin argues that the religious left, not the secular left, is best equipped to lead the battle against the religious right on questions of church and state in America today. Explaining that the chosen rhetoric of secular liberals is poorly equipped to argue against religious conservatives, Shiffrin shows that all progressives, religious and secular, must appeal to broader values promoting religious liberty. He demonstrates that the separation of church and state serves to protect religions from political manipulation while tight connections between church and state compromise the integrity of religious institutions.Shiffrin discusses the pluralistic foundations of the religion clauses in the First Amendment and asserts that the clauses cannot be confined to the protection of liberty, equality, or equal liberty. He explores the constitutional framework of religious liberalism, applying it to controversial examples, including the Pledge of Allegiance, the government's use of religious symbols, the teaching of evolution in public schools, and school vouchers. Shiffrin examines how the approaches of secular liberalism toward church-state relations have been misguided philosophically and politically, and he illustrates why theological arguments hold an important democratic position--not in courtrooms or halls of government, but in the public dialogue. The book contends that the great issue of American religious politics is not whether religions should be supported at all, but how religions can best be strengthened and preserved.

Gibson, James L. Overcoming Historical Injustices: Land Reconciliation in South Africa. Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2009.
KTL3056 .G53 2009

Publisher's Description: Overcoming Historical Injustices is the last entry in James L. Gibson's "overcoming" trilogy on South Africa's transformation from apartheid to democracy. Focusing on the issue of historical land dispossessions - the taking of African land under colonialism and apartheid - this book investigates the judgments South Africans make about the fairness of their country's past. For instance, should land seized under apartheid be returned today to its rightful owner? Gibson's research zeroes in on group identities and attachments as the thread that connects people to the past. Even when individuals have experienced no direct harm in the past, they care about the fairness of the treatment of their group to the extent that they identify with that group. Gibson's analysis shows that land issues in contemporary South Africa are salient, volatile, and enshrouded in symbols and, most important, that interracial differences in understandings of the past and preferences for the future are profound.

Full post as published by LexLibris on November 09, 2009 (boomark / email).