William W. Fisher III. Book order

This anthology presents the full texts of the twenty most significant works of American legal thought since 1890, based on a course taught at Harvard Law School. It explores the rise of a unique American legal reasoning style, featuring influential authors like Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Ronald Coase, Ronald Dworkin, and Catherine MacKinnon. These thinkers addressed the question, "What does it mean to think like an American lawyer?" and their diverse answers collectively advocate for a distinct mode of reasoning and governance. The legal mind is portrayed as both critical and constructive, with these texts serving as a canon of critical thinking and a toolkit for challenging the arguments of prominent legal figures. Each article includes an introduction that highlights its main ideas and situates it within the author's broader intellectual context, the scholarly debates of the time, and the article's reception. Law students and educators will find value in these classic writings, while practicing lawyers can revisit their law school experiences. All readers will appreciate the richness and sophistication with which many legal arguments, now considered clichés, were originally articulated.

During the past fifteen years, changes in technology have generated an extraordinary array of new ways in which music and movies can be produced and distributed. Both the creators and the consumers of entertainment products stand to benefit enormously from the new systems. Sadly, we have failed thus far to avail ourselves of these opportunities. Instead, much energy has been devoted to interpreting or changing legal rules in hopes of defending older business models against the threats posed by the new technologies. These efforts to plug the multiplying holes in the legal dikes are failing and the entertainment industry has fallen into crisis. This provocative book chronicles how we got into this mess and presents three alternative proposals—each involving a combination of legal reforms and new business models—for how we could get out of it.