Carolina Academic Press

Assessing criminal justice/criminology education; a resource handbook for educators and administrators.

Peat (public and environmental affairs, Indiana U. Northwest) and Moriarty (criminal justice, Virginia Commonwealth U.) outline methods for assessing criminal justice and criminology courses and programs in higher education. They discuss assessment in general, Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences standards and certification, university-wide activities, and data management tools; assessment in the context of higher education; political science, public relations, and criminal justice approaches; general education; core competencies; and applications specifically in criminal justice education. Methods can be used for any program. (Annotation ©2009 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

California real estate finance; cases and materials, 5th ed.

The textbook for a course in one of the less glamorous areas of law is updated again to integrate changes in state and national substantive and statutory law, and current issues and controversies in real estate, including predatory lending and the collapse of the subprime mortgage market. California is the focus partly because there is so much land to buy and sell, but also because the state's real estate finance laws are so different than those elsewhere that lawyers intending to practice there need more than the generic treatment offered by other texts. The broad themes are debtor protections, security arrangements other than mortgages and deeds of trust, lenders' strategies for gaining additional protection, priority and alteration of priority, events of default and enforcement by the lender, the foreclosure process, lenders' and borrowers' commitments, and transfers of the property or the debt. (Annotation ©2009 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The changing worlds of Atlantic Africa; essays in honor of Robin Law.

Historians and other scholars of Africana explore topics relating to the work of Law, a Scottish historian of pre-colonial West Africa. Two dozen articles cover empires, politics, and power; commercial transitions in West Africa; slavery and the Atlantic slave trade; Atlantic identities in West Africa and the diaspora; and West Africa and the challenges of the 20th century. Among individual topics are the role of Nigerian drug couriers in the international drug trade, speculations on the African origins of Venture Smith, insights from archaeology about the transatlantic slave trade and endogenous technological backwardness in the Bight of Benin region, British abolitionist policy in West Africa during the middle 19th century, and the economic significance of inland coastal fishing in 17th-century Lagos. (Annotation ©2009 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Mastering family law.

This resource helps law students understand basic principles and gain a general understanding of topics related to family law. Richards (law, U. of Memphis) covers marriage, divorce, domestic violence, spousal and child support, medical decision making, adoption, sexual and reproductive rights, and child law topics such as the constitutional rights and definition of parents, and child neglect and abuse. Content is drawn from the major topics covered in family law teaching texts and is meant to supplement family law casebooks. (Annotation ©2009 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Mastering professional responsibility.

Giesel (law, Louis D. Brandeis School of Law) offers a supplementary text for the textbooks and instruction law students receive in professional responsibility courses. The author discusses the applicable rules and concepts and provides a thorough discussion of the American Bar Association's Model Rules of Professional Conduct. She also covers related constitutional requirements, evidentiary rules, procedural rules, and case law that pertains to matters of lawyer conduct. (Annotation ©2009 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Mastering secured transactions; UCC article 9.

This resource will help law students studying Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code. Chapters of the book are arranged to follow the organization of Article 9. A bulleted "roadmap'" of key points introduces each chapter, and each chapter ends with checkpoints reviewing key concepts. A master checklist at the end of the book helps readers identify areas for further review. Footnotes and citations to secondary sources are used sparingly, allowing the reader to concentrate on essential material. Citations to Article 9 are to the 1999 Official Text of Article 9, and citations to Article 1 are to the 2001 Official Text of Article 1, known as Revised Article 1. The book can be used as a study aid for a law school course on secured transactions or commercial law, or for the bar examination. It is not intended as a substitute for a statutory supplement required for a course. Nowka is affiliated with the University of Louisville School of Law. (Annotation ©2009 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Oral and written expressions of African cultures.

Falola (history, U. of Texas, Austin) and Ngom (anthropology and linguistics, Boston U.) have edited these essays from 13 scholars on the music, poetry, literature and media that is shaping Africa in the 21st century. Written for general audiences as well as students and scholars of African culture, this collection discusses such topics as the emergence of "vulgar poetry" and "lowbrow fiction" in South Africa, the introduction of themes such as HIV/AIDS and cultural taboos from female artists and the political manipulation of music in Kenya. Illustrations and photographs also reveal the use of art and the media to influence socio-cultural, political and economic agendas of the government. (Annotation ©2009 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Policing in rural America; a handbook for the rural law enforcement officer.

This handbook for law enforcement personnel focuses on the policing of rural areas in the United States and how to serve communities with little or no backup, limited opportunities for training and a lack of modern technologies found in urban settings. Capsambelis (criminology, U. of Tampa) lists the proper procedures and tactics that ensure both safety and professionalism and discusses such topics as the police subculture, procedural law, effective patrol practices, the role of the police officer and community relations. Each chapter includes a summary and references for further study. (Annotation ©2009 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Practical global family law; United States, China, Italy.

Richards (law, U. of Memphis School of Law), Wei (law, Southwestern U. of Political Science and Law, People's Republic of China) and Dal Pazzo (n private attorney-at-law) use substantive law in the United States, China and Italy to provide a comparative overview of common and family law practices in these three countries. The author provide a hypothetical divorce case where an Italian- American man and a Chinese-American woman file proceedings in each country so that students in family law can compare custody and visitation rights, child support, appeals, attorney fees and grounds for divorce. Each chapter provides a chart that highlights the similarities and differences in the three legal systems. (Annotation ©2009 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Religious and ritual change; cosmologies and histories.

The papers presented here grew from a workshop held in Taipei in 2005 that asked a number of questions regarding religious change in Austranesia, particularly the Duna, Pangia, parts of Papua New Guinea and Taiwan. Editors Stewart and Strathern (anthropology, University of Pittsburgh) select articles in which, for the most part, the authors study the syncretization of Christianity with traditional religious beliefs. Several note that the denomination of the missionary affects the form that cosmological changes take within the society. The cases of Pacific Islanders, often introduced to Christianity within the past fifty years or so and that of aboriginal Taiwanese who have also been exposed to Buddhism and Daoism, are explored. The ways in which Western religion and its accoutrements are assimilated into a culture are shown to have no pattern. Each experience is unique. This is an excellent examination of how cultural groups appropriate what they need from new encounters that has relevance in many areas of sociology, anthropology, religious studies and history. (Annotation ©2009 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Research guide to Chinese trademark law and practice.

Hu (law, St. Mary's U.) offers American and international scholars, practitioners, and other professionals a single-volume reference on the Chinese trademark legal system. He compiles nearly all relevant information and resources, and filters and analyzes it to serve either as a quick and general reference, or as a starting point for deeper research. His topics include regulations, administrative and judicial decisions, international treaties and agreements, trademark agents, how to conduct a trademark search, and law and economic statistics. Final chapters describe publications, organizations, and other resources and provide a bibliographic guide. Many relevant legal and regulatory texts are appended. (Annotation ©2009 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

What's wrong with "globalization"!?.

Fischer (emeritus, New England School of Law, Distinguished Academic in Residence at Seattle University School of Law) surveys the pros and cons of economic globalization, arguing that it has many benefits but that its deficits need to be more consciously mitigated by international negotiations. Chapters discuss alternatives to globalization; differences in political and market structures; trade in goods and services; capital and investment; labor, health, and environmental issues; capacity building; and peace and security issues. (Annotation ©2009 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)