Paul L. Caron
Dean
Pepperdine Caruso
School of Law
Book Club
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NY Times Op-Ed: Is the World Ready For A Religious Comeback?
New York Times Op-Ed: Is the World Ready for a Religious Comeback?, by Ross Douthat: The world seems primed for religious arguments in the same way it was primed for the new atheists 20 years ago. But the question is whether the religious can reclaim real cultural ground — especially in the heart of secularism,…
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Stewart Reviews Teo’s The United Nations In Global Tax Coordination
Miranda Stewart (Melbourne), The Voice of All Nations in Global Tax Coordination (JOTWELL) (reviewing Nikki J. Teo (Sydney), The United Nations in Global Tax Coordination (Cambridge University Press 2023)): Sometimes a book arrives at just the right moment in history. That is the case for The United Nations in Global Tax Coordination by Dr. Nikki J. Teo,…
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The Bible: A Global History
Wall Street Journal: ‘The Bible’: A Book on a Mission, by Barton Swaim (reviewing Bruce Gordon (Yale Divinity School), The Bible: A Global History (2024)): “One hundred years from my day,” Voltaire is supposed to have remarked, “there will not be a Bible on earth except one that is looked upon by an antiquarian curiosity-seeker.”…
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How Can Professors Learn Students’ Names?
Chronicle of Higher Education, How Can Professors Learn Students’ Names? A Scholar of Memory Shares Her Process.: When Michelle D. Miller leads faculty workshops, she often does what she calls a “party trick” that she uses on the first day of class with her students: learning everyone’s names. As professors have thanked her at the…
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For-Profit Philanthropy Wins ARNOVA Outstanding Book Award
The Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) selected For-Profit Philanthropy: Elite Power and the Threat of Limited Liability Companies, Donor-Advised Funds, and Strategic Corporate Giving, by Dana Brakman Reiser (Brooklyn; Google Scholar) & Steven A. Dean (Boston University), for the Outstanding Book Award in Nonprofit & Voluntary Action Research: This book exposes a…
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It Is Not Best For Man To Eat Alone
Christianity Today op-ed: It Is Not Best for Man to Eat Alone, by Anna Broadway (Author, Solo Planet: How Singles Help the Church Recover Our Calling (2024)): When the waiter brought out my long-awaited high tea that day, I didn’t expect I’d still be grieving it decades later. I was 21 and enjoying my first…
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Should You Have Kids In Law School?
Update: The Unbearable Lightness Of Choosing Children Chronicle of Higher Education op-ed: Should You Have Kids … In Grad School, by Anastasia Berg (UC-Irvine) & Rachel Wiseman (Managing Editor, The Point): The role of children and family in private and public life has become a flashpoint in the public discourse. The musician Charli XCX mused…
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Jesus And The Powers: Christian Political Witness In 2024
Christianity Today Book Review: T. Wright: What Jesus Would Say to the ‘Empire’ Today (reviewing N.T. Wright (University of St Andrews) & Michael F. Bird (Ridley College), Jesus and the Powers: Christian Political Witness in an Age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracies (2024): In a year seeing over 50 countries at the polls—half of which could shift…
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The Making Of Lawyers’ Careers: Inequality And Opportunity In The American Legal Profession
Robert L. Nelson (Northwestern), Ronit Dinovitzer (Toronto), Bryant G. Garth (UC-Irvine), Joyce S. Sterling (Denver), David B. Wilkins (Harvard), Meghan Dawe (Harvard) & Ethan Michelson (Indiana), The Making of Lawyers’ Careers: Inequality and Opportunity in the American Legal Profession (University of Chicago Press 2023) (reviewed by Eli Wald (Denver) here): An unprecedented account of social…
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Taxation, Citizenship And Democracy In The 21st Century
Yvette Lind (BI Norwegian Business School; Google Scholar) & Reuven S. Avi-Yonah (Michigan; Google Scholar), Taxation, Citizenship and Democracy in the 21st Century (Edward Elgar Publishing 2024): Proposing innovative ideas on the links between taxation, citizenship and democracy, this multidisciplinary book contributes to ongoing research and scholarship by emphasizing the importance of taxation to the…
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Christian Faith Was Jackie Robinson’s Haven In A Heartless World
Christianity Today Book Review: Christian Faith Was Jackie Robinson’s Haven in a Heartless World, by Clayton Trutor (Norwich University) (reviewing Gary Scott Smith (Grove City College), Strength for the Fight: The Life and Faith of Jackie Robinson (2022)): Historian Gary Scott Smith has built onto the wing of the Jackie Robinson library that Henry, Long,…
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Townsend: Federal Tax Procedure 2024
Jack Townsend, formerly an adjunct tax professor at the University of Houston Law School, has posted to SSRN his annual editions of the Federal Tax Procedure Book: Student 2024 Edition (782 pages) Practitioner 2024 Edition (1,125 pages) The text is the same in both editions; the Student Edition has no footnotes; the Practitioner Edition has…
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One Lost Soul: Richard Nixon’s Search For Salvation
Daniel Silliman (News Editor, Christianity Today), One Lost Soul: Richard Nixon’s Search for Salvation (2024): Impious and amoral, petty and vindictive, Richard Nixon is not the typical protagonist of a religious biography. But spiritual drama is at the heart of this former president’s tragic story. The night before his resignation, Richard Nixon wept—and prayed. Though…
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In My Time of Dying: How I Came Face To Face With The Idea Of An Afterlife
New York Times Book Review, Sebastian Junger Is Reporting Live From the Brink of Death (reviewing Sebastian Junger, In My Time of Dying: How I Came Face to Face with the Idea of an Afterlife (2024)): Over the course of his reporting career, Sebastian Junger has had several close calls with death. … In the introduction to…
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Law Moms: Juggling Motherhood, Ambition, And Personal Fulfillment
Law Moms: Juggling Motherhood, Ambition and Personal Fulfillment (2024): What does it really take to balance the scales of justice—and family life? Step inside the gritty and gripping reality of the women who juggle the dual demands of motherhood and the legal profession. Law Moms celebrates the indomitable spirit of eight women who navigate the complexities of law…
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The Bible And The Bard: The Gospel According To Shakespeare
F. LaGard Smith (Pepperdine) & John H. Parker (Lipscomb), The Gospel According to Shakespeare: 40 Inspiring Devotionals from the Bible and the Bard (2023): Daily Devotionals Inspired by Shakespeare For those who love Shakespeare and Scripture, this is the best of both.Shakespeare’s writings are filled with classic biblical themes, such as guilt, redemption, sacrifice, forgiveness,…
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WaPo Op-Ed: The Meaning Of Hagar
Washington Post Op-Ed: The Meaning of Hagar, by Marilynne Robinson (Author, Reading Genesis (2024)) (reviewed here): The Bible’s human authors put characters in play for a reason. What were they trying to tell us with the servant girl cast in the wilderness? The book of Genesis evokes the vernal moment, the very spring of Being,…
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Were Christian Colonists Justified In Fighting In The Revolutionary War?
Christianity Today Op-Ed: Were Christian Colonists Justified in Fighting in the Revolutionary War?, by Mark A. Noll (Regent; Author, Christians in the American Revolution): Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.Rom. 13:1 (NIV) Submit…
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Tax After The American War Of Independence
Hans Gribnau (Tilburg) & Jane Frecknall Hughes (Nottingham; Google Scholar), Tax after the American War of Independence: A Consideration of The Federalist and The Anti-Federalist Papers in Studies in the History of Tax Law, Vol. 11 (Peter Harris (Cambridge) & Dominic de Cogan (Cambridge) eds. 2023): The American War of Independence ended formally with the…
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WSJ Book Review: ‘Middle-Aged Tax Attorney’ At Center Of Treasury Department Team Using Financial Weapons To Bring Down Hitler
Wall Street Journal Book Review: Tom Nolan, Hitting Hitler in the Wallet (reviewing Graham Moore, The Wealth of Shadows: A Novel (2024)): The star of Graham Moore’s historical thriller “The Wealth of Shadows” has no illusions about where he stands in 1939. Ansel Luxford is a “middle-aged tax attorney in a neatly knotted bow tie”…
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Chasing Hope: Courage In A Hurting World
Christianity Today Book Review: After Covering Global Disasters for Decades, Nicholas Kristof Is More Hopeful Than Ever, by Gary Haugen (Founder & CEO, International Justice Mission; Author, Good News About Injustice: A Witness of Courage in a Hurting World (2021)) (reviewing Nicholas Kristof, Chasing Hope: A Reporter’s Life (2024)): This is a memoir from someone…
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The Bible And Same-Sex Marriage
Christianity Today Book Review: What Believers Can and Can’t Affirm in Those Who Affirm Same-Sex Marriage, by Darrin W. Snyder Belousek (Ohio Northern; Google Scholar; Author, Marriage, Scripture, and the Church: Theological Discernment on the Question of Same-Sex Union (2021) (reviewing Rebecca McLaughlin, Does the Bible Affirm Same-Sex Relationships? Examining 10 Claims about Scripture and…
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Taxing Artificial Intelligence
Xavier Oberson (University of Geneva), Taxing Artificial Intelligence (2d ed. 2024): In this insightful book, a fully updated edition of the author’s Taxing Robots, Xavier Oberson explores taxing Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a potential response to rising workplace disruption and inequality as the use of AI across the economy continues to grow. Drawing on key…
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How Property Taxes Drive Racism And Inequality
New York Times Op-Ed: It’s Time to End the Quiet Cruelty of Property Taxes, by Andrew W. Kahrl (Virginia; Author, The Black Tax: 150 Years of Theft, Exploitation, and Dispossession in America (University of Chicago Press 2024)): Property taxes, the lifeblood of local governments and school districts, are among the most powerful and stealthy engines…
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NY Times & WSJ Book Reviews: Enslaved Christians And The Making Of The Bible
Wall Street Journal Book Review: The Bible’s Hidden Contributors, by Peter Thonemann (Oxford) (reviewing Candida Ross (University of Birmingham), God's Ghostwriters: Enslaved Christians and the Making of the Bible (2024)): “The stupid, the lowborn, the gullible; slaves, women, and children.” For the second-century pagan writer Celsus, it was easy to sneer at the adherents of…