Articles and Essays

The Case of “Death for a Dollar Ninety-Five”: Finding America in American Injustice, Making Sense of Miscarriages of Justice (2009)

This is a story about a case long forgotten. It was a case that needed...

 

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Thurgood Marshall's Bill of Rights for Kenya, Green Bag (2008)

In Thurgood Marshall’s office after his death, draped over an armchair in the morning sun,...

 

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Making Law/Making War in a World on Fire (revised 10/12/06), Cambridge History of Law in America (forthcoming 2007) (2006)

It is often said that “in times of war, law is silent,” but this essay...

 

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Working toward Democracy: Thurgood Marshall and the Constitution of Kenya, Duke Law Journal (2006)

This Article is a work of transnational legal history. Drawing upon new research in foreign...

 

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The 1963 March on Washington, At Home and Abroad, Revue Française d'Études Américaines (2006)
 

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“Law and Social Context in Civil Rights History,” Review essay, Michael J. Klarman, From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality (Oxford University Press, 2004)., Chicago Law Review (2005)
"From Jim Crow to Civil Rights" engages a theme that has been at the center...
 

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Brown as a Cold War Case, Journal of American History (2004)
 

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Who Cares about Courts? Creating a Constituency for Judicial Independence in Africa: A Review of Jennifer Widner, Building the Rule of Law: Francis Nyalali and the Road to Judicial Independence in Africa (2001), Michigan Law Review (2003)
At a time when many American legal scholars are turning away from courts, stressing the...
 

The Politics of 'The Least Dangerous Branch': The Court, the Constitution and Constitutional Politics Since 1945 , A Companion to Post-1945 America (2002)
This essay, written for a broad scholarly audience, surveys the history and scholarship on the...
 

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Josephine Baker, Racial Protest, and the Cold War , Journal of American History (1994)
 

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Desegregation as a Cold War Imperative, Stanford Law Review (1988)
 

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Desegregation as a Cold War Imperative, Stanford Law Review (1988)

At the height of the McCarthy era, when Congressional committees were exposing "communist infiltration" in...

 

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The Limits of Good Faith: Desegregation in Topeka, Kansas, 1950-1956 , Law and History Review (1987)
 

Books

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Exporting American Dreams: Thurgood Marshall's African Journey (2008)

Book description from Oxford University Press:

Thurgood Marshall became a living icon...

 

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Legal Borderlands: Law and the Construction of American Borders (with Leti Volpp) (2006)

This volume interrogates law's role in constituting American borders. It has been a project of...

 

September 11 in History: A Watershed Moment? (2003)

Within hours after the collapse of the Twin Towers, the idea that the September 11...

 

Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy (2000)

This study explores the impact of foreign affairs on U.S. civil rights policy during the...

 

Other Works

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Interchange: History in the Professional Schools, Journal of American History (2005)
 

Short Essays and Op-Eds

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A Bill of Rights for Kenya: Marshall's Role (2007)
 

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Review of Brown v. Board of Education-Related History Web Sites (2006)
 

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Hurricane Damage (2005)
 

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The demise -- and possible revival -- of Roe vs. Wade (2004)
 

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Finding the Words (2004)
 

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LOOKING INSIDE: Even Two Years Later, Memories Are Changing (2003)
 

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The Supreme Court's History of Indifference to the Opinions of Other Countries' Courts (2003)
 

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On Using U.S. Diplomatic Records for Research on African Constitutions: A Guide to the Archives (2002)
A rich, but unexpected, source for research in African constitutional history is records of the...
 

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The Duty of the Living (2002)
 

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"American Law as a Sojourner," Review of Eileen P. Scully. Bargaining with the State from Afar: American Citizenship in Treaty Port China, 1844-1942. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001. (2002)
 

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"America the Beautiful" (2001)
 

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Allen Iverson and Urban Community (2001)