Books by Richard A. Posner

Judges and legal scholars talk past one another, if they have any conversation at all. Academics criticize judicial decisions in theoretical terms, which leads many judges to dismiss academic discourse as divorced from reality. Richard Posner reflects on the causes and consequences of this widening gap and what can be done to close it.

Are the elderly posing a threat to America's political system with their enormous clout? Are they stretching resources to the breaking point with their growing demands for care? This text seeks to offer fresh insight into a wide range of social and political issues relating to the elderly.

Drawing on economic and political theory, legal analysis, and his own extensive judicial experience, Posner sketches the history of the federal courts, describes the contemporary institution, appraises concerns that have been expressed with their performance, and presents a variety of proposals for both short-term and fundamental reform.

Posner presents a balanced and scholarly understanding of President Clinton's year of crisis which began when his affair with Monica Lewinsky was revealed in January 1998, clarifying the issues involved, assessing the conduct of Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, and examining the pros and cons of impeachment.

No sitting federal judge has ever written so trenchant a critique of the federal judiciary as Richard A. Posner does in this, his most confrontational book. He exposes the failures of the institution designed by the founders to check congressional and presidential power and resist its abuse, and offers practical prescriptions for reform.

This is a concise compendium of America's sex laws, summarizing the laws regulating personal sexual activity; revealing gaps, anachronisms, anomalies, inequalities and irrationalities; and providing an empirical basis for studies of sexual regulation.

For Richard Posner, legal formalism and formalist judges--notably Antonin Scalia--present the main obstacles to coping with the dizzying pace of technological advance. Posner calls for legal realism--gathering facts, considering context, and reaching a sensible conclusion that inflicts little collateral damage on other areas of the law.

Posner uses economic analysis to probe justice and efficiency, primitive law, privacy, and the constitutional regulation of racial discrimination.

As judge and legal scholar Posner shows, we make quite rational choices about sex, based on costs and benefits perceived. Drawing on the fields of biology, law, history, religion, and economics, this study examines societies from ancient Greece to today's Sweden and issues from masturbation, incest taboos, date rape, and gay marriage to Baby M.

Posner discusses the structure and behavior of the legal profession; constitutional theory; interdisciplinary approaches to law; the nature of legal reasoning; and legal pragmatism. The book contains frank appraisals of feminist and critical race theories, the behavior of the German and British judiciaries in wartime, and more.

Analyzing various decisions made by the Director of National Intelligence and examining in detail, issues from Hurricane Katrina to the national security computer networks, this book demonstrates the dangers of an overly centralized intelligence system. It also offers clear ideas for reform that go beyond risky organizational changes.

Here one of America's most distinguished scholar-judges shares with us his vision of the law. Posner argues for a pragmatic jurisprudence, one that eschews formalism in favor of the factual and the empirical. Laws, he argues, are not abstract, sacred entities, but socially determined goads for shaping behavior to conform with society's values.

Takes a longer view of the crisis of democratic capitalism as the American and world economies crawl gradually back from the depths to which they had fallen in the autumn of 2008 and the winter of 2009. This title calls for fresh thinking about the business cycle that would build on the original ideas of Keynes.

The financial and economic crisis that began in 2008 is the most alarming of our lifetime because of the warp-speed at which it is occurring. Posner presents a concise and non-technical examination of this mother of all financial disasters and of the, as yet, stumbling efforts to cope with it.

A distinguished and experienced appellate court judge, Posner offers in this new book a unique and, to orthodox legal thinkers, a startling perspective on how judges and justices decide cases.

Emphasizes the differences between law and literature, which are rooted in the different social functions of legal and literary texts. This book include topics such as the cruel and unusual punishments clause of the Constitution, illegal immigration, surveillance, global warming and bioterrorism, and plagiarism.

Posner characterizes the current preoccupation with moral and constitutional theory as an evasion of the real need of American law, which is for a greater understanding of the social, economic, and political facts out of which great legal controversies arise, and advocates a rebuilding of the law on the basis of systematic empirical inquiry.

In this revised edition of "Antitrust Law", Richard A. Posner explains his call for an economic approach to antitrust law to new generations of lawyers and students. He updates and amplifies his approach as it applies to the developments, both legal and economic, in the antitrust field since 1976.

The most exciting development in legal thinking since World War II has been the growth of interdisciplinary legal studies. Judge Richard Posner has been a leader in this movement, and his new book explores its rapidly expanding frontier.