Legal Canons (Hardcover)

~ Jack Balkin (Author), Sanford Levinson (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Every discipline has its canon: the set of standard texts, approaches, examples, and stories by which it is recognized and which its members repeatedly invoke and employ. Although the last twenty-five years have seen the influence of interdisciplinary approaches to legal studies expand, there has been little recent consideration of what is and what ought to be canonical in the study of law today.

Legal Canons brings together fifteen essays which seek to map out the legal canon and the way in which law is taught today. In order to understand how the twin ideas of canons and canonicity operate in law, each essay focuses on a particular aspect, from contracts and constitutional law to questions of race and gender. The ascendance of law and economics, feminism, critical race theory, and gay legal studies, as well as the increasing influence of both rational-actor methodology and postmodernism, are all scrutinized by the leading scholars in the field.

A timely and comprehensive volume, Legal Canons articulates the need for, and means to, opening the debate on canonicity in legal studies.

About the Author

Jack Balkin is Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment at Yale Law School and author of Cultural Software: A Theory of Ideology. Sanford Levinson is W. St. John Garwood and W. St. John Garwood Jr. Regents Chair in Law and Professor of Government at the University of Texas, Austin. He is the author, most recently, of Written in Stone: Public Monuments in Changing Society.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 443 pages
• Publisher: NYU Press (August 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0814798578
• ISBN-13: 978-0814798577
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,345,349 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Legal Canon: "What Every Lawyer Should Know", June 22, 2006

By	socraticfury "kchen28" (Houston, TX) - See all my reviews

It is unfortunate that this book is not available in paperback, since this collection of 14 essays is solid and addresses a topic that would behoove law students, who are generally poor (though many will soon be rich), to think about.

"Our subject," the editors say in their Introduction, "concerns what is and what ought to be canonical in the study of law." (In fact the editors have made an overly ambitious claim; they are concerned not with the study of law simply, but the study of American law specifically. The self-absorption implicit in their statement is all the more amusing since the editors evidently lean to the Left. But I say that as good-natured ribbing and not as a "J'accuse!"). Note: "the study of law," NOT "the practice of law." Canonicity is of only peripheral concern (if that) to practitioners; this book is targeted to students of the law and not practitioners of the law (the editors do discuss the tension between practice concerns and "timeless problems" on pp.407-10, but that very discussion buttresses my claim).

It is impossible to summarize a book like this so I will simply note some of my overall impressions. As is to be expected from a multi-author collection, Legal Canons is uneven in quality, and the reader will naturally find some topics of more interest, and some authors more to their taste, than others. However, I believe that anyone interested in legal theory can learn something from almost every chapter. I read this book from cover to cover, and although some chapters struck me as boring, none struck me as incompetent. Indeed, I consider it much more likely that my boredom stemmed from my incompetence than that it bespeaks some fundamental shortcoming in the chapters themselves.

The chapters in Part III, "The Canon and Groups," will likely engender the strongest reactions from many readers. These chapters share the conviction that the traditional law curriculum, in terms of what is taught and how it's taught, marginalizes certain groups. Precisely because these chapters focus on particular groups, these chapters have a distinct "partisan" feel, one that may turn off some readers and turn on others. The essays in this group really have the hardest task in the book, because (1) the topics here touch upon the most passionately held beliefs, and (2) whereas all the other essays are working within traditional legal categories (with the singular exception of the Law and Economics chapter by Farber), these chapters seek to challenge those very categories. Given that goal, they have set a high bar for themselves. As a result, I am torn between saying that it is the worst section of the book (b/c some of the worst-supported claims are made here) and that it is the most uneven section of the book (b/c it contains several claims that are in themselves very strong, but could have been better supported).

In general, though, the essays included here range from competent to good to quite good (such as the Bobbitt chapter, which lays out a list of 13 canonical texts in Con Law and 9 likely additions, with good, though certainly debatable, supporting arguments; the specificity of the chapter is, to my mind, a plus; the Weisberg chapter is also specific and in some respects is more learned than Bobbitt's, but I consider that almost part of the problem; Weisberg is too preening for me, too self-consciously aware of himself, his style does not suit my taste). In short, I recommend this book to law professors, law students, and those with a general interest in legal theory and/or legal education. I also recommend that you try to find it at a discount.