front cover of The Secret Lives of Citizens
The Secret Lives of Citizens
Pursuing the Promise of American Life
Thomas Geoghegan
University of Chicago Press, 2000
In this witty combination of memoir and observation, Thomas Geoghegan addresses the widespread cynicism about our government and explores what it means to be a "national" civil servant and a "local" citizen.

"This is unlike any public-policy book I've ever read: part Catcher in the Rye, part The Road to Wigan Pier, part The Federalist Papers, it is mesmerizing, rueful, painfully honest, and never, ever dull."—Nicholas Lemann, author of The Big Test

"Extraordinary. It has the essential trait of a memorable book, in that after reading it you look at daily life in a lastingly different way." —James Fallows, author of Breaking the News

"[Geoghegan] has written a book that is not only compelling to read but that provokes us to seriously reflect on the choices we make and how we spend our time." —Jonathan Coleman, Washington Post Book World

"Geoghegan's language is playful. . . . Personal reminiscence mixing with historical anecdote, dipping into complex themes . . . shifting from wistful nostalgia to dark comedy." —Robert B. Reich, New York Times Book Review

"A truly strange and wonderful book." — William Finnegan
[more]

front cover of Why the Law Is So Perverse
Why the Law Is So Perverse
Leo Katz
University of Chicago Press, 2011

Conundrums, puzzles, and perversities: these are Leo Katz’s stock-in-trade, and in Why the Law Is So Perverse, he focuses on four fundamental features of our legal system, all of which seem to not make sense on some level and to demand explanation. First, legal decisions are essentially made in an either/or fashion—guilty or not guilty, liable or not liable, either it’s a contract or it’s not—but reality is rarely as clear-cut. Why aren’t there any in-between verdicts? Second, the law is full of loopholes. No one seems to like them, but somehow they cannot be made to disappear. Why? Third, legal systems are loath to punish certain kinds of highly immoral conduct while prosecuting other far less pernicious behaviors. What makes a villainy a felony? Finally, why does the law often prohibit what are sometimes called win-win transactions, such as organ sales or surrogacy contracts?

           

Katz asserts that these perversions arise out of a cluster of logical difficulties related to multicriterial decision making. The discovery of these difficulties dates back to Condorcet’s eighteenth-century exploration of voting rules, which marked the beginning of what we know today as social choice theory. Condorcet’s voting cycles, Arrow’s Theorem, Sen’s Libertarian Paradox—every seeming perversity of the law turns out to be the counterpart of one of the many voting paradoxes that lie at the heart of social choice. Katz’s lucid explanations and apt examples show why they resist any easy resolutions.

           

The New York Times Book Review called Katz’s first book “a fascinating romp through the philosophical side of the law.” Why the Law Is So Perverse is sure to provide its readers a similar experience.

[more]


Send via email Share on Facebook Share on Twitter