Includes bibliographical references and index.

"In recent years, legal studies have increased the focus on contemporary social issues involved in law and society. This volume discusses the traditional subjects covered in other law and society texts and eliminates the need for a separate reader by also including chapters on controversial legal topics including affirmative action, education, the death penalty, right to work laws, and abortion. Each chapter builds on the previous ones and includes concrete examples of the issues involved. Supplemented with ample pedagogical features, the book is designed to encourage students in the development of new insights on the relationships between law and society. "

"Preface This text on the study of law and society is more than a look at how law controls or influences our society. It is designed to open the students' eyes to the fascinating topics involving law and society. Our approach is to present a text that may be used in a one-semester course on law and society or a sociology of law course. While each chapter builds on the previous chapters, the text is designed so that the chapters may be studied in a different order, depending on the design of the course. The text is written in a manner that may be understood by college students and thus enable instructors to focus on selected issues and topics during class time. Too often in the law and society area, textbooks can be understood only by instructors, and thus valuable class time must be used to explain the meaning of the concepts covered in the text. To overcome this problem, we followed the example of Ernest Hemingway and used familiar, concrete words and short sentences whenever possible. This approach should allow valuable class time to be used to encourage critical thinking on the part of the students. A few acknowledgments are appropriate: Carolyn Spence, our editor, for her encouragement and guidance; and our colleagues at Washburn University, Professors Ted Heim, Michael Birzer, and of course the department chair, Gary Bayens. A hug of appreciation to Prudy Taylor Board, the project editor at Taylor & Francis, and Doug Burke, the copy editor, for an admirable job in producing a text from the manuscript. "