New Books in Law

In The State (Princeton University Press, 2023), the prominent political philosopher Philip Pettit embarks on a massive undertaking, offering a major new account of the foundations of the state and the nature of justice. In doing so, Pettit builds a new theory of what the state is and what it ought to be, addresses the normative question of how justice serves as a measure of the success of a state, and the way it should operate in relation to its citizens and other people.Philip Pettit is L.S. Rockefeller University Professor of Human Values at Princeton University and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Australian National University, Canberra.Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law

Join philosopher Jake Monaghan, an Assistant Professor at USC and author of Just Policing, as he dives into the complexities of modern policing. He challenges the idea that full enforcement is the path to justice, advocating instead for a nuanced understanding of police discretion. Monaghan critiques abolitionist views and highlights the necessity of policing in urban settings. He also discusses historical examples of non-punitive policing and the moral implications of law enforcement decisions in non-ideal contexts.

What happens when sports decision-making collides with business interests, legal battles, and moral dilemmas? Sports Chaos dives into the unpredictable world where experts, executives, and athletes must navigate high-stakes choices that shape the future of sports. From billion-dollar deals to ethical debates over owner and athlete behavior, this book unpacks The Colliding Reasons Problem, real-life cases where business, law, and morality clash in the sports industry. With insights from professionals across these fields, the authors explore how to balance profits, rules, and fairness through a new decision process called The Decision Dynamics Process. If you’ve ever been curious about sports behind the headlines, Sports Chaos will change the way you view the decisions shaping your favorite teams and athletes. Don’t just watch the game—understand the forces driving it. Grab your copy of Sports Chaos today and explore the hidden dynamics behind sports decisions! Paul Knepper covered the New York Knicks for Bleacher Report. His first book was The Knicks of the Nineties: Ewing, Oakley, Starks and the Brawlers That Almost Won It All. His next book, Moses Malone: The Life of a Basketball Prophet, is now available. You can reach Paul at paulknepper@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @paulieknep. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law

In Governing Forests: State, Law and Citizenship in India’s Forests (Melbourne UP, 2024), Arpitha Kodiveri unpacks the fraught and shifting relationship between the Indian State, forest-dwelling communities, and forest conservation regimes. The book builds on years of fieldwork across the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Odisha, and Karnataka with forest-dwelling communities, Adivasi and Dalit activists, lawyers, and bureaucrats, to tell a turbulent story of battling for environmental justice. Kodiveri traces the continuing rhetorics of conservation and sovereignty in the forest practices of the colonial and the postcolonial Indian State, the entanglements between the climate crisis, resource extractivism, and eco-casteism, and credits the forest-dwelling communities for finding courageous and creative ways of securing their access and stewardship of forest resources. Governing Forests hopes for the possibility of “healing of historical antagonisms” between conservationists and forest dwellers through a co-productive model Kodiveri calls “negotiated sovereignty”, a governance paradigm rooted in a jurisprudence of care and repair. Arpitha Kodiveri is an environmental law and justice scholar and assistant professor of political science at Vassar College. Raghavi Viswanath is a postdoctoral researcher and teaching fellow at SOAS, University of London. Her research, supported by the Leverhulme Trust, examines how pastoralists claim grazing rights under India’s Forest Rights Act 2006 and how the everyday processes of staking such claims has been impacted by the authoritarian turn in India. LinkedIn. Email:rv13@soas.ac.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law

David Garland, a renowned criminologist and law professor, explores America’s unique approach to policing and punishment. He discusses how economic disparities and the legacy of the 1960s led to aggressive law enforcement and mass incarceration. Garland connects historical violence and concentrated poverty to high crime rates, arguing that America’s social fabric supports punitive policies. He emphasizes the need for reform, sharing examples of successful policy changes that could lead to a more equitable justice system.

Special Advocates in the Adversarial System (Routledge, 2020) uncovers the little known phenomenon of Special Advocates who represent the best interests of an excluded party in closed trials. Professor John Jackson's empirical analysis draws into question the commitment of legal-systems to long-held principles of adversarial justice, due process and even human rights protections in trials that relate to immigration, national security, civil and criminal proceedings. In its comparative approach, the book tackles issues of accountability and the ethical concerns surrounding the appointment and prevalence of the special advocate system. This book will shock lawyers and scholars alike and is an important contribution to considerations of the administration of justice.  Professor John Jackson is an Emeritus Professor of Comparative Criminal Law and Procedure at The University of Nottingham.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law

In Future of the Forest: Struggles over Land and Law in India (Cornell UP, 2025), Anand P. Vaidya tells the story of the making and unmaking of India’s Forest Rights Act 2006, a law enacted to secure the largest redistribution of property in independent India by recognising the tenure and use rights of millions of landless forest dwellers. Beginning with the devastating destruction of a north Indian village Vaidya calls Ramnagar, inhabited by landless Dalits and Adivasis, the book follows the interventions of activists, forest dwelling communities, political parties, and corporations during the drafting of the law and traces how each of these coalitions shapes the law’s implementation. Vaidya shows how this ambitious law became a battleground of competing legal potentialities — at once a tool of exclusion, dividing forest dwellers along caste and class lines, and yet a platform for resistance, enabling forest dwellers to challenge State domination. A multi-scalar study, Future of the Forest is attentive to the everyday politics of staking a forest rights claim, revealing how the law opens space for fluid (and often extralegal) interpretations, shifting political authority, and diverging aspirations. Anand Vaidya is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Reed College. Raghavi Viswanath is a postdoctoral researcher and teaching fellow at SOAS, University of London. Her research, supported by the Leverhulme Trust, examines how pastoralists claim grazing rights under India’s Forest Rights Act 2006 and how the everyday processes of staking such claims has been impacted by the authoritarian turn in India. LinkedIn. Email: rv13@soas.ac.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law

Meg Groff's memoir Not If I Can Help It (Rivertown Books, 2025) recounts some of the most harrowing, infuriating, yet inspiring stories from Groff’s work as a Legal Aid attorney representing women and children whose only resource is the sheer courage they exhibit every day. Groff dedicated forty years of her life to fighting for justice for victims of domestic violence in rural and suburban Pennsylvania. Against the odds, Groff won hundreds of exhilarating courtroom victories—and also suffered some heartbreaking defeats. In Not If I Can Help It, she brings these stories to life with vivid detail, deep empathy, surprising humor, and the boundless passion for justice that has driven her life and work. Readers who care about law, human rights, and the struggles of ordinary people will be captivated and inspired by this powerful book and the sobering insights it offers about the American way of justice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law

While decolonization liberated territories, it left the root causes of historical injustice unaddressed. Governance change did not address past wrongs and transferred injustice through political and financial architectures. In Calibrating Colonial Crime: Reparations and The Crime of Unjust Enrichment (Bristol University Press/Policy Press, 2024) Dr. Joshua Castellino presents a five-point plan aimed at system redress through reparations that addresses the colonially induced climate crisis through equitable and sustainable means. In highlighting the structural legacy of colonial crimes, Dr. Castellino provides insights into the complexities of contemporary societies, showing how legal frameworks could foster a fairer, more just world. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law

During the Great Depression, the proliferation of local taxpayers’ associations was dramatic and unprecedented. The justly concerned members of these organizations examined the operations of state, city, and county governments, then pressed local officials for operational and fiscal reforms. These associations aimed to reduce the cost of state and local governments to make operations more efficient and less expensive. "Mr. Taxpayer versus Mr. Tax Spender": Taxpayers’ Associations, Pocketbook Politics, and the Law during the Great Depression (Temple UP, 2023) by Dr. Linda Upham-Bornstein presents a comprehensive overview of these grassroots taxpayers’ leagues beginning in the 1860s and shows how they evolved during their heyday in the 1930s. Dr. Upham-Bornstein chronicles the ways these taxpayers associations organized as well as the tools they used—constructive economy, political efforts, tax strikes, and tax revolt through litigation—to achieve their objectives. Taxpayer activity was a direct consequence of—and a response to—the economic crisis of the Great Depression and the expansion of the size and scope of government. “Mr. Taxpayer versus Mr. Tax Spender” connects collective tax resistance in the 1930s to the populist tradition in American politics and to other broad impulses in American political and legal history. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law