Review by New York Times Review
BEHEMOTH: A History of the Factory and the Making of the Modern World, by Joshua B. Freeman. (Norton, $27-95-) Freeman traces two centuries of factory production around the world in ways that are accessible, cogent, occasionally riveting and entirely new. The book should be required for all Americans. A FALSE REPORT: A True Story of Rape in America, by T. Christian Miller and Ken Armstrong. (Crown, $28.) This is the story of a rape investigation - plainly and expertly told - in which the victim is bullied into recanting her story before evidence surfaces, years later, to prove she was telling the truth all along. RISE AND KILL FIRST: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations, by Ronen Bergman. (Random House, $35.) Bergman's fast-paced account of Israel's program to assassinate its enemies raises troubling moral and practical questions but also demonstrates that the tactic can be a highly effective tool against terrorist groups. WE THE CORPORATIONS: How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights, by Adam Winkler. (Liveright, $28.95.) A law professor recounts the history of American companies' radical efforts to shape the law, with the result, he writes, that "today corporations have nearly all the same rights as individuals." THE FRIEND, by Sigrid Nunez. (Riverhead, $25.) The narrator of Nunez's wry novel inherits a Great Dane after her friend and mentor, an aging author, commits suicide. The novel suggests that something larger than writerly passion has been lost in our culture, but itself serves as a tribute to the values it holds dear. WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE? Essays, by Marilynne Robinson. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $27.) The novelist's latest collection, featuring talks she gave over the past three years, elaborates an eloquent defense of America's democratic traditions and institutions, with a special focus on public universities, whose original mission, she reminds us, was to "democratize privilege." ETERNAL LIFE, by Dara Horn. (Norton, $25.95.) What are the downsides of living forever? Horn explores this idea through the story of Rachel, who has been alive for 2,000 years and is getting a little tired of it. "The hard part isn't living forever," she says. "It's making life worth living." BEAR AND WOLF, written and illustrated by Daniel Salmieri. (Enchanted Lion, $17.95; ages 4 to 8.) Gorgeous, serene and philosophical, this picture book by the illustrator of "Dragons Love Tacos" features animal friends on a winter night's walk. THE RABBIT LISTENED, written and illustrated by Cori Doerrfeld. (Dial, $17.99; ages 4 to 8.) In this wonderful picture book, little Taylor's block tower falls. Everyone who passes gives advice, but a silent rabbit offers what's really needed: an understanding ear. The full reviews of these and other recent books are on the web: nytimes.com/books
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [March 25, 2018]
Review by Booklist Review
Corporate constitutional rights have become a hot-button topic since the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United (2010) and Hobby Lobby (2014) decisions, and this timely, exciting book clarifies and sheds light on the issues. Constitutional law professor and legal commentator Winkler (Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America, 2011) examines the history of the relationship between corporations and the Constitution, providing a field guide to the legal issues and an overview of a long-term corporate civil rights movement that employs techniques familiar from social justice movements. Beginning with the close relationship between corporate governance and the development of democracy in colonial America, he explores how each period in American history saw new battles over corporate constitutional rights and why the courts have generally favored their expansion, and he closes with a discussion of the current legal landscape. Along the way, he presents a wide range of vividly drawn historical figures, bringing their philosophies, tactics, debates, and shenanigans to life while allowing readers to assess the ethics and implications of their work.--Jorgensen, Sara Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Journalist and law professor Winkler (Gunfight) evenhandedly traces key interactions between the Supreme Court and U.S. corporations to demonstrate how the controversial Citizens United decision was merely "the most recent manifestation of a long, and long overlooked, corporate rights movement." Winkler starts his history in colonial America, showing how corporations such as the Virginia Company and Massachusetts Bay Company shaped American life from the very start. The rest of the book focuses on pivotal Supreme Court decisions, from 1809's Bank of the United States v. Deveaux, over the corporate right to sue, through 2014's Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., over religious rights. Winkler's research is impressively thorough and wide-ranging, including original court records and news coverage as well as other historians' analyses and interpretations. His argument is well supported throughout. Historical personages, from the well-known (Andrew Jackson, Henry Ford) to the more obscure (Roscoe Conkling, Charles Evan Hughes) to the downright surprising (Cecil B. DeMille), make appearances. He somewhat overstuffs the book with facts and backstory, some of which are only tangential to his project, but all are worthy of attention. Winkler employs an evocative, fast-paced storytelling style, making for an entertaining and enlightening book that will likely complicate the views of partisans on both sides of the issue. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Are corporations "persons?" Do they have rights akin to humans? Is this question absurd? If you answered the first two questions in the affirmative, you are correct, at least according to U.S. Supreme Court rulings culminating in the relatively recent (2010)-and highly controversial-Citizens United case. And if you answered yes to the third question, you would not be alone. Prominent legal scholars and jurists, most notably Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in her vehement dissent, take issue with the notion that corporations should be on equal footing with actual people when it comes to the extension of rights. In this fascinating study, UCLA law professor Winkler (Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right To Bear Arms in America) illuminates the evolution of this peculiar idea. Accordingly, he explicates the history of corporations and jurisprudence and explores how capitalism and civil rights have shaped judicial thinking. Moreover, he identifies prominent players, such as Daniel Webster, Roger Taney, Lewis Powell, and Thurgood Marshall. VERDICT Eminently readable and entertaining, this work is highly recommended for fans of Corporations and American Democracy, edited by Naomi R. Lamoreaux and William J. Novak. [See Prepub Alert, 8/21/17.]-Lynne Maxwell, West Virginia Univ. Coll. of Law Lib., Morgantown © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A chronicle of the steady, willful process by which corporations became peopleuntil, that is, you try to sue them.As Winkler (Law/UCLA; Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America, 2011) notes, "there was nearly $1 billion in new political spending" in the first campaign cycle after the Citizens United v. FEC decision of 2010, almost all from corporations or wealthy individualsand that was just at the federal level. It's worth remembering that Citizens United began as an attack on Hillary Clinton, every conservative's favorite bte noire; but, as Winkler notes, it had long antecedents. His account begins nearly 120 years before, in fact, with an argument by Roscoe Conkling, a former senator and friend of President Chester Arthur, before the Supreme Court positing that the authors of the 14th Amendment meant to include corporations when they wrote that no state shall "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." As Winkler wryly observes, the amendment was meant to protect the rights of newly emancipated enslaved people, not Southern Pacific, and, as he writes, "there was just one small problem with Conkling's account of the drafting of the Fourteenth Amendment: it was not true." Untruths and half-truths abound in the author's subsequent discussion of arguments advanced beforeand increasingly accepted byAmerican courts, including the premise with the recent Hobby Lobby decision that corporations, as voluntary associations of people, can hold religious views. It's small consolation that corporations themselves have not succeeded in gaining the right to vote, but they hold other powers, including, after Citizens United, "the right to use their amassed resources to influence candidate elections." At the same time, thanks to what can only be perceived as a perversion of justice and judicial intent, corporations have none of the responsibilities of people, a textbook example of having your cake and eating it too.Maddening for those who care about matters constitutional and an important document in the ongoing struggle to undo Citizens United. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
