BiblioVault - Books about Case for

32 Counties

The Failure of Partition and the Case for a United Ireland

Kieran Allen

Pluto Press, 2021

'This is Irish history seen anew, from below, bristling with practical lessons for working-class struggle today' - Eamonn McCann

The 32 counties of Ireland were divided through imperial terror and gerrymandering. Partition was borne from a Tory strategy to defend the British Empire and has spawned a 'carnival of reaction' in Irish politics ever since. Over the last 100 years, conservative forces have dominated both states offering religious identity as a diversion from economic failures and inequality.

Through a sharp analysis of the history of partition, Kieran Allen rejects the view that the 'two cultures' of Catholic and Protestant communities lock people into permanent antagonism. Instead, the sectarian states have kept its citizens divided through political and economic measures like austerity, competition for reduced services and low wages.

Overturning conventional narratives, 32 Counties evokes the tradition of James Connolly and calls for an Irish unity movement from below to forge the North and the Republic into a secular, socialist and united Ireland.

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Being Reasonable

The Case for a Misunderstood Virtue

Krista Lawlor

Harvard University Press, 2026

A leading philosopher explores what it means to be reasonable—and why it matters for the well-being of our society.

Reasonableness plays many roles in our lives. In Anglo-American law, it is the yardstick for a wide range of behavior—the “reasonable-person standard” governs everything from contract enforcement to killing in self-defense. In politics, a state can maintain a liberal democracy only if its citizens are reasonable. In ordinary life, we hold each other accountable to reason: We criticize the unreasonable of bosses who demand too much of our time or of partners who make decisions without regard for our preferences.

But what does it mean to be reasonable? Being reasonable is not the same as being rational. It is also different from being thoughtful. In Being Reasonable, Krista Lawlor argues that a reasonable person seeks to understand what is valuable. A reasonable person must be rational enough to figure out what is valuable and thoughtful enough to care about what other people find valuable, but rationality and thoughtfulness alone do not suffice to make one reasonable. Even an ideally rational and thoughtful person might fail to understand, or lack the concern to understand, what is valuable.

Being Reasonable is the first comprehensive study of reasonableness. Lawlor provides an account of the nature of reasonableness and, further, explains how we manage to be reasonable. Humans discover what is valuable by listening to their emotions and by listening to each other. By taking command over our emotions, and by interacting attentively with others, we can live up to the standard set by society and law.

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The Case for a Carbon Tax

Getting Past Our Hang-ups to Effective Climate Policy

Shi-Ling Hsu

Island Press, 2012

There's a simple, straightforward way to cut carbon emissions and prevent the most disastrous effects of climate change-and we're rejecting it because of irrational political fears. That's the central argument of The Case for a Carbon Tax, a clear-eyed, sophisticated analysis of climate change policy.

Shi-Ling Hsu examines the four major approaches to curbing CO2: cap-and-trade; command and control regulation; government subsidies of alternative energy; and carbon taxes. Weighing the economic, social, administrative, and political merits of each, he demonstrates why a tax is currently the most effective policy. Hsu does not claim that a tax is the perfect or only solution-but that unlike the alternatives, it can be implemented immediately and paired effectively with other approaches.

In fact, the only real barrier is psychological. While politicians can present subsidies and cap-and-trade as "win-win" solutions, the costs of a tax are immediately apparent. Hsu deftly explores the social and political factors that prevent us from embracing this commonsense approach. And he shows why we must get past our hang-ups if we are to avert a global crisis.

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The Case for the Prosecution in the Ciceronian Era

Michael C. Alexander

University of Michigan Press, 2003

Much of the modern world's knowledge of criminal court trials in the Late Roman Republic derives from the orations of Cicero. His eleven court trial speeches have provided information about the trials and the practices of the time period. Records of the prosecution's case are lost; these speeches, our only transcripts of the time, were delivered by the defense. The Case for the Prosecution in the Ciceronian Era attempts to restore the judicial balance by depicting the lost side of the trial.

Guided by Cicero's argument, Michael C. Alexander recreates the prosecution's case against the defendants in the trials.

Organized into eleven chapters, each detailing one trial, the core of the work discusses the different dimensions of each trial, the circumstances surrounding the cases, those involved, the legal charges and allegations made by the prosecution, the ways in which the prosecution might have countered Cicero's rebuttal and the outcome. There is also a discussion concerning particular problems the prosecution may have faced in preparing for the trial. This book reveals strong points in favor of the prosecution; justifies the hope of the prosecutor, a private citizen who had volunteered to undertake the case; and asks why the prosecutors believed they would come out victorious, and why they eventually failed.

The Case for the Prosecution in the Ciceronian Era draws on ancient rhetorical theory and on Roman law to shed light on these events. It will interest historians and classicists interested in Ciceronian oratory and those intrigued by legal history.

Michael C. Alexander is Associate Professor of History, University of Illinois, Chicago.

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Kafka and Wittgenstein

The Case for an Analytic Modernism

Rebecca Schuman

Northwestern University Press, 2015

In Kafka and Wittgenstein, Rebecca Schuman undertakes the first ever book-length scholarly examination of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language alongside Franz Kafka’s prose fiction. In groundbreaking readings, she argues that although many readers of Kafka are searching for what his texts mean, in this search we are sorely mistaken. Instead, the problems and illusions we portend to uncover, the im-portant questions we attempt to answer—Is Josef K. guilty? If so, of what? What does Gregor Samsa’s transformed body mean? Is Land-Surveyor K. a real land surveyor?— themselves presuppose a bigger delusion: that such questions can be asked in the first place. Drawing deeply on the entire range of Wittgenstein’s writings, Schuman can-nily sheds new light on the enigmatic Kafka.

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A Love Affair with Europe

The Case for a European Future

Giles Radice

Haus Publishing, 2018

From his earliest childhood, Giles Radice has held Europe close to his heart. Ten years after the end of World War II, at the age of 18, he set off to cycle across the continent. Meeting his European contemporaries, Radice discussed the prospects of building a new and better Europe, in which war might be ended forever and prosperity assured for all. It was clear to him that Europe should unite, and that Britain could not stay on the margins. Elected to Parliament, Radice did his part, pushing Britain to become and remain officially a part of Europe, and asking why the British always remained reluctant Europeans, forever skeptical about the benefits of greater union. Now, post-Brexit, he confronts those questions anew. Why have the underlying forces of the EU not pulled Britain closer to the continent? How much should we blame the negative influence of the media? From Thatcher’s Euroscepticism to Blair’s soundbites and the half-hearted campaign from both main parties in the referendum of 2016, Radice ultimately places the blame squarely on the political class itself.

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What It Means to Be Human

The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics

O. Carter Snead

Harvard University Press, 2020

A Wall Street Journal Top Ten Book of the Year
A First Things Books for Christmas Selection
Winner of the Expanded Reason Award

“This important work of moral philosophy argues that we are, first and foremost, embodied beings, and that public policy must recognize the limits and gifts that this entails.”
—Wall Street Journal

The natural limits of the human body make us vulnerable and dependent on others. Yet law and policy concerning biomedical research and the practice of medicine frequently disregard these stubborn facts. What It Means to Be Human makes the case for a new paradigm, one that better reflects the gifts and challenges of being human.

O. Carter Snead proposes a framework for public bioethics rooted in a vision of human identity and flourishing that supports those who are profoundly vulnerable and dependent—children, the disabled, and the elderly. He addresses three complex public matters: abortion, assisted reproductive technology, and end-of-life decisions. Avoiding typical dichotomies of conservative-liberal and secular-religious, Snead recasts debates within his framework of embodiment and dependence. He concludes that if the law is built on premises that reflect our lived experience, it will provide support for the vulnerable.

“This remarkable and insightful account of contemporary public bioethics and its individualist assumptions is indispensable reading for anyone with bioethical concerns.”
—Alasdair MacIntyre, author of After Virtue

“A brilliantly insightful book about how American law has enshrined individual autonomy as the highest moral good…Highly thought-provoking.”
—Francis Fukuyama, author of Identity

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Why Corporation 2020?

The Case for a New Corporation in the Next Decade

Pavan Sukhdev

Island Press, 2012

In Why Corporation 2020?, Pavan Sukhdev examines the many critical planetary boundaries that we are approaching, from greenhouse gas emissions to the nitrogen cycle, freshwater and land use, and food security, and argues that sweeping changes are needed to reform the way we deal with the earth’s resources. Sukhdev makes an arresting case for including the private sector in these changes, arguing that a new corporate model is needed in the next decade to avert irreparable ecological harm.

Available free at major online booksellers.

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Writing Religion

The Case for the Critical Study of Religion

Edited by Steven W. Ramey

University of Alabama Press, 2015

In 2002, the University of Alabama's Department of Religious Studies established the annual Aronov Lecture Series to showcase the works of nationally recognized scholars of religion capable of reflecting on issues of wide relevance to scholars from across the humanities and social sciences. Writing Religion: The Case for the Critical Study of Religion is an edited collection of essays that highlights critical contributions from the first ten Aronov lecturers.

Section one of the volume, “Writing Discourses,” features essays by Jonathan Z. Smith, Bruce Lincoln, and Ann Pellegrini that illustrate how critical study enables the analysis of discourses in society and history. Section two, “Riting Social Formations,” includes pieces by Arjun Appadurai, Judith Plaskow, and Nathan Katz that reference both the power of rites to construct society and the act of riting as a form of disciplining that both prescribes and proscribes. The writings of Tomoko Masuzawa, Amy-Jill Levine, Aaron W. Hughes, and Martin S. Jaffee appear in section three, “Righting the Discipline.” They emphasize the correction of movements within the academic study of religion.

Steven W. Ramey frames the collection with a thoughtful introduction that explores the genesis, development, and diversity of critical analysis in the study of religion. An afterword by Russell McCutcheon reflects on the critical study of religion at the University of Alabama and rounds out this superb collection.

The mission of the Department of Religious Studies is to “avoid every tendency toward confusing the study of religion with the practice of religion.” Instruction about—rather than in—religion is foundational to the department’s larger goal of producing knowledge of the world and its many practices and systems of beliefs. Infused with this spirit, these fascinating essays, which read like good conversations with learned friends, offer significant examples of each scholar’s work. Writing Religion will be of value to graduate students, advanced undergraduates, and scholars interested in the study of religion from a critical perspective.

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