Preemption: A Knife That Cuts Both Ways (Issues of Our Time (Norton Paperback)) - Softcover

Dershowitz, Alan M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393329348 ISBN 13: 9780393329346

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2007

Synopsis

“A path-breaking must-read for government leaders, strategists, and all concerned Americans.”―General Wesley K. Clark

In Preemption one of our nation’s foremost legal scholars puts forward a controversial new theory on crime and punishment in the postmodern world. Using the American government’s 2003 invasion of Iraq as a starting point, Alan M. Dershowitz tracks our society’s increasing reliance on preemptive action. In Preemption, which Judge Richard Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals calls “lucid, sober, courageous, and historically informed,” Dershowitz has brought together all of his diverse and considerable talents and experiences to confront the idea of preemptive action as it applies to some of our most urgent political and moral dilemmas.

About this title

About the Author:

Leading criminal law and constitutional scholar Alan M. Dershowitz is the author of such critically acclaimed books as Rights from Wrongs, The Case for Israel, and Why Terrorism Works. A professor at Harvard Law School, he lives in Massachusetts.

From Booklist:

When and how should democratic societies respond to potentially dangerous conduct before the conduct takes place? The latest book from this prolific defense lawyer and legal scholar examines preemptive war, preventative detention, and restrictions on dangerous speech, and claims that in the absence of general legal principles (or even a healthy debate) about preemptive action, society's current trend away from deterrence and toward prevention (as accelerated by the "war on terrorism") threatens longstanding notions of individual liberty and state sovereignty. Attempting to articulate the rudiments of a jurisprudence of prevention and preemption, Dershowitz considers the risk calculus applied by Israel in its various preventative wars and digs into his own previous research into the problematic mathematics of prediction. Although the subject matter dovetails nicely with Dershowitz's recent work on torture and terrorism, this account conspicuously avoids those works' polemics and admits that constructing a jurisprudence for a democracy is a daunting task not well served by narrow political stances. Yet perennially provocative Dershowitz sneaks in a punch or two, speculating aloud about the possibility of preemptive action against Iran's nuclear program and arguing that preemptive war in Iraq may have hindered preemptive action against that nation. Best read in conversation with Richard Posner's cost-benefit argument for prevention in Catastrophe: Risk and Response (2004), this book is an academic and accessible framing of an important debate. Brendan Driscoll
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About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0393329348
• ISBN 13: 9780393329346
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 366