Race Law Stories

A new book from Foundation Press:

Race Law Stories brings to life well-known and not-so-well known legal opinions—hidden gems—that address slavery, Native American conquest, Chinese exclusion, Jim Crow, Japanese American internment, immigration, affirmative action, voting rights and employment discrimination. Each story goes beyond legal opinions to explore the historical context of the cases and the worlds of the ordinary people and larger-than-life personalities who drove the litigation process.

The book’s multiracial and interdisciplinary approach makes it useful for courses on race and the law and Critical Race Theory both inside and outside the law school as well as for undergraduate and graduate courses in ethnic studies. Each story illuminates the role that the law has played in both creating and combating racial inequality. Race Law Cases, an edited collection of the cases discussed in the Race Law Stories, will be available as a supplement in 2008.

I've been reading Antitrust Stories to help get a better understanding of Antitrust Law for both my Antitrust class I'm taking this summer and my work at the Federal Trade Commission. It is a great book and I highly recommend any of the books in the series to anyone. They take the dry cases found in many casebooks and tell them as a narrative story that illuminates the historical backdrop and factual details that often get left out of the cases. It turns the cases into stories that read like a novel. These would also be a great aid for a layperson wanting to get a better understanding of a particular area of the law.

Here are the other books in the series:

• Administrative Law Stories (2006), edited by Peter L. Strauss (Columbia)
• Antitrust Stories (2007), by Eleanor M. Fox (NYU) & Daniel A. Crane (Cardozo)
• Bankruptcy Law Stories (2007), edited by Robert Rasmussen (Dean, USC)
• Business Tax Stories (2005), edited by Steven A. Bank (UCLA) & Kirk J. Stark (UCLA)
• Civil Procedure Stories (2d ed. 2008), edited by Kevin M. Clermont (Cornell)
• Civil Rights Stories (2008), edited by Myriam Gilles (Cardozo) & Risa Goluboff (Virginia):
• Constitutional Law Stories (2004), edited by Michael C. Dorf (Columbia)
• Contracts Stories (2006), edited by Douglas G. Baird (Chicago)
• Criminal Procedure Stories (2006), edited by Carol S. Steiker (Harvard)
• Education Law Stories (2008), edited by Michael A. Olivas (Houston) & Ronna Greff Schneider (Cincinnati)
• Employment Discrimination Stories (2006), edited by Joel William Friedman (Tulane)
• Employment Law Stories (2007), edited by Samuel Estreicher (NYU) & Gillian Lester (UC-Berkeley)
• Environmental Law Stories (2005), edited by Richard J. Lazarus (Georgetown) & Oliver A. Houck (Tulane)
• Evidence Stories (2006), edited by Richard O. Lempert (Michigan)
• Family Law Stories (2008), edited by Carol Sanger (Columbia):
• Immigration Stories (2005), edited by David A. Martin (Virginia) & Peter H. Schuck (Yale)
• Intellectual Property Stories (2005), edited by Jane C. Ginsburg (Columbia) & Rochelle Cooper Dreyfuss (NYU)
• International Law Stories (2007), edited by John Noyes (California Western), Mark Janis (Connecticut) & Laura Dickinson (Connecticut)
• Labor Law Stories (2005), edited by Laura J. Cooper (Minnesota) & Catherine L. Fisk (Duke)
• Legal Ethics Stories (2005), edited by Deborah L. Rhode (Stanford) & David Luban (Georgetown)
• Property Stories (2004), edited by Gerald Korngold (Case Western) & Andrew P. Morriss (Illinois)
• Tax Stories (2003), edited by Paul L. Caron (Cincinnati)
• Torts Stories (2003), edited by Robert L. Rabin (Stanford) & Stephen D. Sugarman (UC-Berkeley)
• Trial Stories (2008), edited by Michael E. Tigar (American) & Angela J. Davis (American)