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Featured Titles
The Devil in Dover: An Insider's Story of Dogma v. Darwin in Small-Town America
by Lauri Lebo (New Press, 2008)
In 2004, the rural school board in Dover, Pennsylvania voted to teach intelligent design in
ninth-grade biology classrooms. Eleven concerned parents sued, sparking a federal
constitutional challenge. In this work, a local journalist traces the compelling backstory
of this pivotal case, described by some as a perfect storm of religious intolerance, First
Amendment violations, and an assault on American science education. In a community divided
across unexpected lines, the judge - a George W. Bush-appointed Republican - eventually
condemned the school board's decision as one of "breathtaking inanity." The
author follows the story through its surprising twists as she probes one of America's
most divisive ongoing cultural conflicts.
Jacket photograph of Dover, PA © Stan Honda/Getty Images
Jacket photograph of news conference by Wesley R. Eisberry
Jacket photograph of monkey © Kenneth Lilly/Getty Images
Jacket design by Emily Mahon
Inside the Presidential Debates: Their Improbable Past and Promising Future
by Newton N. Minow and Craig L. Lamay (University of Chicago Press, 2008)
This work provides an inside look into the origins of the presidential debates and the many
battles - both legal and personal - that have determined who has been allowed to debate and
under what circumstances. The authors do not dismiss the recent criticism of the debates
but do come down solidly in favor of them, arguing that they are one of the great
accomplishments of modern American electoral politics. They remind us that the debates were
once unique in the democratic world, are now emulated across the globe, and offer the public
the only real chance to see the candidates respond to one another directly in a discussion
of major social, economic, and foreign policy issues. Looking to the challenges posed by
third-party candidates and the emergence of new media such as YouTube, the authors make
recommendations for the future, calling for the debates to become less formal and exploring
the ways in which the internet might serve to broaden the debates' appeal and
informative power.
Jacket photo: CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images
Jacket design: Matt Avery
The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product That Defined
America
by Allan M. Brandt (Basic Books, 2007)
From agriculture to big business, from medicine to politics, this work provides a definitive
account of how smoking came to be so deeply implicated in our culture, science, policy, and
law. No product, the author argues, has been so heavily promoted or has become so deeply
entrenched in American consciousness. And no product has received such scientific scrutiny,
with the development of new medical knowledge demonstrating the dire effects of smoking.
Using a massive archive of previously secret documents, the author shows how the industry
engineered a campaign of scientific disinformation seeking to delay, disrupt, and suppress
these studies, particularly using special interest lobbying and largesse to elude
regulation. But even as the cultural dominance of the cigarette has waned and consumption
has fallen dramatically in the U.S., Big Tobacco remains securely positioned to expand into
new global markets, where the implications for the future are vast: in the next 100 years,
we expect 1 billion tobacco-related deaths worldwide. This work illustrates how one
ephemeral product came to play such a dominant role in so many aspects of our lives - and
our deaths.
Jacket design by Rodrigo Corral
Jacket photograph by Fredrik Broden
Patent Failure: How Judges, Bureaucrats, and Lawyers Put Innovators at Risk
by James Bessen and Michael J. Meurer (Princeton University Press, 2008)
In the last several years, business leaders, policymakers, and inventors have complained to
the media and to Congress that today's patent system stifles innovation instead of
fostering it. Is the patent system fundamentally broken, or can it be fixed with a few
modest reforms? This work examines whether patents work well as property rights, and, if
not, what institutional and legal reforms are necessary to make the patent system more
effective. It presents a wide range of empirical evidence from history, law, and economics
showing that, for most businesses today, patents fail to provide predictable property
rights. Instead, the authors argue, they produce costly disputes and excessive litigation
that outweigh positive incentives. Only in some sectors, such as the pharmaceutical
industry, they say, do patents act as advertised, with their benefits outweighing the
related costs. This work serves as a call for change in institutions and laws in this area.
Jacket design and illustration by Marcella Engel Roberts
Jacket photo © Shutterstock.com