A casebook to be used as the primary text for first-year law school contracts courses, written by a leading scholar in contract law. Renting a home, buying a ticket, downloading an app--humans enter into contracts constantly, often with little consciousness of the legal implications. We typically become alert to the consequences only when a problem arises. Contracting can increase our happiness by enabling us to do things that we would be otherwise unable to do, but heartbreak follows when things go wrong. This casebook, which can be used as a primary text for a first-year law school contracts course, covers a wide spectrum of quandaries that emerge in contract law, from problems of overreach and interpretation to enforcement and fraud. Taken together, these cases offer an exploration of contract pathology and introduce students to concepts that are essential to understanding the vast subject of Anglo-American contract law.&nbsp; This book is part of the Open Casebook series from Harvard Law School Library and the MIT Press. <ul> <li>Primary text for a first-year law school contracts course&nbsp;</li> <li>Developed for use at Harvard Law School by a leading scholar in contract law&nbsp;</li> <li>Diverse cases show differing approaches to a range of problems within contracting</li> <li>Classroom tested&nbsp;</li> </ul>

Contracts, third edition: Happiness and Heartbreak (Open Casebook Series)

Kennedy, Randall

Reference

The MIT Press

Timely—as the 2012 presidential election nears—and controversial, here is the first book by a major African-American public intellectual on racial politics and the Obama presidency. Renowned for his cool reason vis-à-vis the pitfalls and clichés of racial discourse, Randall Kennedy—Harvard professor of law and author of the New York Times best seller Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word—gives us a keen and shrewd analysis of the complex relationship between the first black president and his African-American constituency. Kennedy tackles such hot-button issues as the nature of racial opposition to Obama, whether Obama has a singular responsibility to African Americans, electoral politics and cultural chauvinism, black patriotism, the differences in Obama’s presentation of himself to blacks and to whites, the challenges posed by the dream of a postracial society, and the far-from-simple symbolism of Obama as a leader of the Joshua generation in a country that has elected only three black senators and two black governors in its entire history. Eschewing the critical excesses of both the left and the right, Kennedy offers a gimlet-eyed view of Obama’s triumphs and travails, his strengths and weaknesses, as they pertain to the troubled history of race in America.

The Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Pantheon

In this incisive and unflinching study, Randall Kennedy, author of Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word, tackles another stigma of America's racial discourse: “selling out.” He explains the origins of the concept and shows how fear of this label has haunted prominent members of the black community—including, most recently, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and Barack Obama. Sellout also contains a rigorously fair case study of America's quintessential racial “sellout”—Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. In the book's final section, Kennedy recounts how he himself has dealt with accusations of being a sellout after meeting fierce criticism at Harvard upon the publication of his book, Nigger.

Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Renowned for his insightful, common-sense critiques of racial politics, Randall Kennedy gives us a shrewd and penetrating analysis of the complex relationship between the first black president and his African-American constituency. Kennedy tackles such hot-button issues as the nature of racial opposition to Obama; whether Obama has a singular responsibility to African Americans; the differences in Obama’s presentation of himself to blacks and to whites; the challenges posed by the dream of a post-racial society; the increasing irrelevance of a certain kind of racial politics and its consequences; the complex symbolism of Obama’s achievement and his own obfuscations and evasions regarding racial justice. Eschewing the critical excesses of both the left and the right, Kennedy offers an incisive view of Obama’s triumphs and travails, his strengths and weaknesses, as they pertain to the troubled history of race in America.

History

Americas

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s recent decision regarding Fisher v. University of Texas, For Discrimination is at once the definitive reckoning with one of America’s most explosively contentious and divisive issues and a principled work of advocacy for clearly defined justice. What precisely is affirmative action, and why is it fiercely championed by some and just as fiercely denounced by others? Does it signify a boon or a stigma? Or is it simply reverse discrimination? What are its benefits and costs to American society? What are the exact indicia determining who should or should not be accorded affirmative action? When should affirmative action end, if it must? Randall Kennedy, Harvard Law School professor and author of such critically acclaimed and provocative books as Race, Crime, and the Law and the national best-seller Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word, gives us a concise, gimlet-eyed, and deeply personal conspectus of the policy, refusing to shy away from the myriad complexities of an issue that continues to bedevil American race relations. With pellucid reasoning, Kennedy accounts for the slipperiness of the term “affirmative action” as it has been appropriated by ideologues of every stripe; delves into the complex and surprising legal history of the policy; coolly analyzes key arguments pro and con advanced by the left and right, including the so-called color-blind, race-neutral challenge; critiques the impact of Supreme Court decisions on higher education; and ponders the future of affirmative action.

For Discrimination: Race, Affirmative Action, and the Law

For Discrimination is at once the definitive reckoning with one of America’s most explosively contentious and divisive issues and a principled work of advocacy for clearly defined justice. What precisely is affirmative action, and why is it fiercely championed by some and just as fiercely denounced by others? Does it signify a boon or a stigma? Or is it simply reverse discrimination? What are its benefits and costs to American society? What are the exact indicia determining who should or should not be accorded affirmative action? When should affirmative action end, if it must? Randall Kennedy gives us a concise and deeply personal overview of the policy, refusing to shy away from the myriad complexities of an issue that continues to bedevil American race relations.

From the author of Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word and Race, Crime, and the Law—a tour de force about the controversial issue of personal interracial intimacy as it exists within ever-changing American social mores and within the rule of law. Fears of transgressive interracial relationships, informed over the centuries by ugly racial biases and fantasies, still linger in American society today. This brilliant study—ranging from plantation days to the present—explores the historical, sociological, legal, and moral issues that continue to feed and complicate that fear. In chapters filled with provocative and cleanly stated logic and enhanced by intriguing historical anecdotes, Randall Kennedy tackles such subjects as the presence of sex in racial politics and of race in sexual politics, the prominence of legal institutions in defining racial distinction and policing racial boundaries, the imagined and real pleasures that have attended interracial intimacy, and the competing arguments around interracial romance, sex, and family life throughout American history. In Interracial Intimacies, Randall Kennedy offers nothing less than a bracing, much-needed ethic of multiracial living.

Interracial Intimacies: Sex, Marriage, Identity, and Adoption

Nigger: it is arguably the most consequential social insult in American history, though, at the same time, a word that reminds us of “the ironies and dilemmas, tragedies and glories of the American experience.” In this tour de force, distinguished Harvard Law School professor Randall Kennedy—author of the highly acclaimed Race, Crime, and the Law— “put[s] a tracer on nigger,” to identify how it has been used and by whom, while analyzing the controversies to which it has given rise. With unprecedented candor and insight Kennedy explores such questions as: How should nigger be defined? Is it, as some have declared, necessarily more hurtful than other racial epithets? Do blacks have a right to use nigger even as others do not? Should the law view nigger baiting as a provocation strong enough to reduce the culpability of a person who responds violently to it? Should a person be fired from his or her job for saying nigger? How might the destructiveness of nigger be assuaged? To be ignorant of the meanings and effects of nigger, says Kennedy, is to render oneself vulnerable to all manner of peril. This book brilliantly and sensitively addresses that concern.

Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word

Arts & Photography

Music

In the wake of his controversial national best-seller, Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word, Randall Kennedy grapples brilliantly and judiciously with another stigma of our racial discourse: "selling out," or racial betrayal, which is a subject of much anxiety and acrimony in Black America. He atomizes the vicissitudes of the term and shows how its usage bedevils blacks and whites, while elucidating the effects it has on individuals and on our society as a whole. Kennedy begins his exploration of selling out with a cogent, historical definition of the "black" community, accounting precisely for who is considered black and who is not. He looks at the ways in which prominent members of that community--Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and Barack Obama, among others--have been stigmatized as sellouts. He outlines the history of the suspicion of racial betrayal among blacks, and he shows how current fears of selling out are expressed in thought and practice. He offers a rigorous and bracing case study of the quintessential "sellout"--Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, perhaps the most vilified black public official in American history. And he gives is a first-person reckoning of how he himself has dealt with accusations of having sold out at Harvard, especially after the publication of Nigger. Lucidly and powerfully articulated, Sellout is essential to any discussion of the troubled history of race in America.

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Psychology & Counseling

Winner of the 1998 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award Grand Prize "An original, wise and courageous work that moves beyond sterile arguments and lifts the discussion of race and justice to a new and more hopeful level."--Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. In this groundbreaking, powerfully reasoned, lucid work that is certain to provoke controversy, Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy takes on a highly complex issue in a way that no one has before. Kennedy uncovers the long-standing failure of the justice system to protect blacks from criminals, probing allegations that blacks are victimized on a widespread basis by racially discriminatory prosecutions and punishments, but he also engages the debate over the wisdom and legality of using racial criteria in jury selection. He analyzes the responses of the legal system to accusations that appeals to racial prejudice have rendered trials unfair, and examines the idea that, under certain circumstances, members of one race are statistically more likely to be involved in crime than members of another. "An admirable, courageous, and meticulously fair and honest book."--New York Times Book Review "This book should be a standard for all law students."--Boston Globe

Race, Crime, and the Law

Vintage

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Kennedy, Randall. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Kennedy, Randall

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Kennedy, Randall. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Contracts, third edition: Happiness and Heartbreak (Open Casebook Series)

The Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency

Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal

The Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency

For Discrimination: Race, Affirmative Action, and the Law

For Discrimination: Race, Affirmative Action, and the Law

Interracial Intimacies: Sex, Marriage, Identity, and Adoption

Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word

Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal

Race, Crime, and the Law