Shows you how to make tough-minded survival decisions. It's a book you can't afford to live without.

An insider's account of America's ineffectual approach to some of the hardest defense and intelligence issues in the three decades since the Cold War ended. Insanity can be defined as doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result. As a nation, America has cycled through the same defense and intelligence issues since the end of the Cold War. In Insanity Defense, Congresswoman Jane Harman chronicles how four administrations have failed to confront some of the toughest national security policy issues and suggests achievable fixes that can move us toward a safer future. The reasons for these inadequacies are varied and complex, in some cases going back generations. American leaders didn’t realize soon enough that the institutions and habits formed during the Cold War were no longer effective in an increasingly multi-power world transformed by digital technology and riven by ethno-sectarian conflict. Nations freed from the fear of the Soviets no longer deferred to America as before. Yet the United States settled into a comfortable, at times arrogant, position as the lone superpower. At the same time our governing institutions, which had stayed resilient, however imperfectly, through multiple crises, began their own unraveling. Congresswoman Harman was there—as witness, legislator, exhorter, enabler, dissident and, eventually, outside advisor and commentator. Insanity Defense is an insider’s account of decades of American national security—of its failures and omissions—and a roadmap to making significant progress on solving these perennially difficult issues.

The insanity defense has become the most passionately debated issue in criminal law, a debate marked by slogans and stereotypes. Mr. Goldstein offers a reasoned study of that debate and the current rules behind the law, as well as a careful examination of what might be expected from any new rules now proposed.

Ingrid DiLaurio lives in Riversedge, New York, four express train stops from Manhattan. Don't be fooled: With its tree-lined Main Street, and quaint ambiance, Riversedge is only impersonating a small town. While it's a place small enough for everyone to know each other's secrets, few do. The town revolves around the prestigious Riversedge Law Club, where deals are made and cases are resolved and where Ingrid DiLaurio -- a former lawyer turned nationally recognized podcast host - has never once been made to feel welcome. When Ingrid's husband, Peter, is found dead, and Ingrid's former friend, Opal, is arrested as the prime suspect, the press quickly seizes on Opal's past as a single mom and stripper. Ingrid's first priority is protecting herself and her son, Drake, along with her business, from salacious gossip. But when Opal finds herself in desperate need of a defense lawyer, she tells Ingrid she wants to call in a "favor," and Ingrid reluctantly returns to the law for one last case. As the trial unfolds, Ingrid realizes quickly that she has taken on more than she bargained for, including Opal's dark past, a corrupt judge, a blackmailing prosecutor, another dead body, and a black tinted car that follows her everywhere. In the end, it's clear that both women know more than they are letting on about Peter's death, but who will tell the truth first? And is the truth what anyone really wants to hear?

centerWe The People The Bill of Rights defines and defends the freedoms we enjoy as Americans -- from the right to bear arms to the right to a civil jury. Using the dramatic true stories of people whose lives have been deeply affected by such issues as the death penalty and the right to privacy, attorneys Ellen Alderman and Caroline Kennedy reveal how the majestic priciples of the Bill of Rights have taken shape in the lives of ordinary people, as well as the historic and legal significance of each amendment. In doing so, they shed brilliant new light on this visionary document, which remains as vital and as controversial today as it was when a great nation was newly born.

"If you're a fan of John Grisham, Scott Turow, and Brad Meltzer, then you will be a fan of Steve Cavanagh's The Defense." —Nelson DeMille, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Radiant Angel Eddie Flynn used to be a con artist. Then he became a lawyer. Turns out the two aren't that different. Former con artist turned lawyer Eddie Flynn gave up the law a year ago after a disastrous case, and he vowed never to step foot in a courtroom again. But now he doesn't have a choice. The head of the Russian mob in New York City, on trial for murder, has kidnapped Eddie's ten-year-old daughter: Eddie has to take this case whether he likes it or not. Using his razor-sharp wit and every con, bluff, grift, and trick in the book, Eddie has only forty-eight hours to defend an impossible murder trial. And if he loses this case, he loses everything.

The law - A brief survey of history & procedures -- Federal constitutional standards -- The use of deadly force -- Wound ballistics -- Training vs qualification -- Physiological imperatives -- Tactical factors & misconceptions -- Suicide by cop & the mentally ill subject-- Risk & responsibility -- Aftermath & impact -- Deadly force policy- -- Case histories.

Calls for closer connections among disciplines can be heard throughout the world of scholarly research, from major universities to the National Institutes of Health. In Defense of Disciplines presents a fresh and daring analysis of the argument surrounding interdisciplinarity. Challenging the belief that blurring the boundaries between traditional academic fields promotes more integrated research and effective teaching, Jerry Jacobs contends that the promise of interdisciplinarity is illusory and that critiques of established disciplines are often overstated and misplaced. Drawing on diverse sources of data, Jacobs offers a new theory of liberal arts disciplines such as biology, economics, and history that identifies the organizational sources of their dynamism and breadth. Illustrating his thesis with a wide range of case studies including the diffusion of ideas between fields, the creation of interdisciplinary scholarly journals, and the rise of new fields that spin off from existing ones, Jacobs turns many of the criticisms of disciplines on their heads to mount a powerful defense of the enduring value of liberal arts disciplines. This will become one of the anchors of the case against interdisciplinarity for years to come.

A history of America’s Stand Your Ground gun laws, from Reconstruction to Trayvon Martin After a young, white gunman killed twenty-six people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012, conservative legislators lamented that the tragedy could have been avoided if the schoolteachers had been armed and the classrooms equipped with guns. Similar claims were repeated in the aftermath of other recent shootings—after nine were killed in a church in Charleston, South Carolina, and in the aftermath of the massacre in the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Despite inevitable questions about gun control, there is a sharp increase in firearm sales in the wake of every mass shooting. Yet, this kind of DIY-security activism predates the contemporary gun rights movement—and even the stand-your-ground self-defense laws adopted in thirty-three states, or the thirteen million civilians currently licensed to carry concealed firearms. As scholar Caroline Light proves, support for “good guys with guns” relies on the entrenched belief that certain “bad guys with guns” threaten us all. Stand Your Ground explores the development of the American right to self-defense and reveals how the original “duty to retreat” from threat was transformed into a selective right to kill. In her rigorous genealogy, Light traces white America’s attachment to racialized, lethal self-defense by unearthing its complex legal and social histories—from the original “castle laws” of the 1600s, which gave white men the right to protect their homes, to the brutal lynching of “criminal” Black bodies during the Jim Crow era and the radicalization of the NRA as it transitioned from a sporting organization to one of our country’s most powerful lobbying forces. In this convincing treatise on the United States’ unprecedented ascension as the world’s foremost stand-your-ground nation, Light exposes a history hidden in plain sight, showing how violent self-defense has been legalized for the most privileged and used as a weapon against the most vulnerable.