Winner of the Julia Ward Howe Prize “The gripping story of the most important environmental law case ever decided by the Supreme Court.” —Scott Turow “In the tradition of A Civil Action, this book makes a compelling story of the court fight that paved the way for regulating the emissions now overheating the planet. It offers a poignant reminder of how far we’ve come—and how far we still must go.” —Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature On an unseasonably warm October morning, an idealistic young lawyer working on a shoestring budget for an environmental organization no one had heard of hand-delivered a petition to the Environmental Protection Agency, asking it to restrict greenhouse gas emissions from new cars. The Clean Air Act authorized the EPA to regulate “any air pollutant” thought to endanger public health. But could carbon dioxide really be considered a harmful pollutant? And even if the EPA had the authority to regulate emissions, could it be forced to do so? The Rule of Five tells the dramatic story of how Joe Mendelson and the band of lawyers who joined him carried his case all the way to the Supreme Court. It reveals how accident, infighting, luck, superb lawyering, politics, and the arcane practices of the Supreme Court collided to produce a legal miracle. The final ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA, by a razor-thin 5–4 margin brilliantly crafted by Justice John Paul Stevens, paved the way to important environmental safeguards which the Trump administration fought hard to unravel and many now seek to expand. “There’s no better book if you want to understand the past, present, and future of environmental litigation.” —Elizabeth Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction “A riveting story, beautifully told.” —Foreign Affairs “Wonderful...A master class in how the Supreme Court works and, more broadly, how major cases navigate through the legal system.” —Science

The U.S. war with Mexico was a pivotal event in American history, it set crucial wartime precedents and served as a precursor for the impending Civil War. With a powerful introduction and rich collection of documents, Ernesto Ch‡vez makes a convincing case that as an expansionist war, the U.S.-Mexico conflict set a new standard for the acquisition of foreign territory through war. Equally important, the war racialized the enemy, and in so doing accentuated the nature of whiteness and white male citizenship in the U.S., especially as it related to conquered Mexicans, Indians, slaves, and even women. The war, along with ongoing westward expansion, heightened public debates in the North and South about slavery and its place in newly-acquired territories. In addition, Ch‡vez shows how the political, economic and social development of each nation played a critical role in the path to war and its ultimate outcome. Both official and popular documents offer the events leading up to the war, the politics surrounding it, popular sentiment in both countries about it, and the war’s long-term impact on the future development and direction of these two nations. Headnotes, a chronology, maps and a selected bibliography enrich student understanding of this important historical moment.

Through the compelling story of the Tierra Amarilla conflict, David Correia examines how law and property, in general, and a Mexican-period land grant in northern New Mexico, in particular, have been constituted through violence and social struggle. Spain and Mexico populated what is today New Mexico through large common property land grants to sheepherders and agriculturalists. After the U.S.-Mexican War the area saw rampant land speculation and dubious property adjudication with nearly all the grants being rejected by U.S. courts or acquired by land speculators. Of all the land grant conflicts in New Mexico's history, Tierra Amarilla is one of the most sensational, with numerous nineteenth-century speculators ranking among the state's political and economic elite and a remarkable pattern of resistance to land loss by heirs in the twentieth century. Correia narrates a long and largely unknown history of property conflict in Tierra Amarilla characterized by nearly constant violence-night riding and fence cutting, pitched gun battles, and tanks rumbling along the rutted dirt roads of northern New Mexico. The legal geography he constructs is one that includes a remarkable cast of characters: millionaire sheep barons, Spanish anarchists, hooded Klansmen, Puerto Rican freedom fighters-or as J. Edgar Hoover, another of the characters in Correia's story would have called them, "terrorists." By placing property and law at the center of his study, "Properties of Violence" first reveals and then examines a central irony: violence is not the opposite of law but rather is essential to its operation.

High and Dry tells the story of a river in an arid region and the long history of litigation between Texas and New Mexico as they battle over water rights.

Land Grants and Lawsuits in Northern New Mexico presents a comprehensive and clear account of clashing legal systems. Considered the definitive book on New Mexico land grants, it is often used as a text in southwestern studies courses. This edition includes a new introduction by Malcolm Ebright and stunning new cover art by Glen Strock. Contained within are eight case studies of specific land grants, together with background material on the making of Spanish and Mexican land grants and their adjudication by the United States. Ebright draws on his wide experience as a historian and attorney to examine the history of New Mexico's land grants from their antecedents in Spain and Mexico down to present-day land and water lawsuits. With detail illuminated by historical context, Ebright narrates specific cases involving fraud, forgery, and injustice, as well as courageous acts by land grant communities.

New Mexico rancher and lawman Dee (Daniel R.) Harkey describes himself as having “been shot at more times than any man in the world not engaged in war.” Mean as Hell, originally published in 1948 when Harkey was 83, is his detailed, witty autobiography about his youth in San Saba County of west Texas, where in 1882 he learned from his brother Joe, the sheriff, to “be damned sure you don’t get killed, but don’t kill anybody unless you have to” and his adult life in Eddy County after moving to Karlsbad (then Eddy) in 1890. Harkey served as a New Mexico peace officer from 1893 until 1911. Among the many cattle rustlers, train robbers, and other outlaws he confronted were Jim Miller, whom Harkey fingers as Pat Garrett’s real killer, and the Dalton Gang. Harkey observes that, in 1948, “cattle stealing has gone out of fashion. We’ve gotten civilized. Instead..., we now have statesman who practice nepotism, pad the public payrolls and graft as much as they think they can get away with (in an honorable way, of course) just like the folks back east.” Readers interested in many aspects of the territorial and outlaw West will enjoy Dee Harkey’s lively stories.

Instructors choose Gender and the Law: Theory, Doctrine, Commentary for: - a thorough analysis of gender and law through several distinct perspectives, which include formal equality, substantive equality, nonsubordination theory, difference theory, autonomy, and non-essentialism - going far beyond traditional gender issues to draw cases, theory, and commentary from many different areas of the law, such as employment law, criminal law, constitutional law, family law, civil procedure, legal ethics, property law, and contracts - explaining to students the complex ways in which laws are said to be gendered - unique Putting Theory into Practice problems at the end of each section, which allow students to apply the legal and theoretical tools to cutting-edge issues The Fourth Edition keeps pace with important developments: - updated material on women in the legal profession and legal education - the text contains updates of most important new cases and theoretical insights relating to employment law, Title IX, criminal sentencing, welfare and Social Security reform, affirmative action, teenage pregnancy, gay and lesbian rights - cases, statistics, commentary, and empirical studies of the law in action appear in the materials on sexual harassment, domestic violence, and rape - important cases include Goodridge v. Mass., Nevada v. Hibbs, Lawrence v. Texas, and Jespersen v. Harrah's - more material on international law in the area of rape and global trafficking