The Rights of Groups

Concise yet rich in insight, The Rights of Groups is a continuation of an exemplary academic career. Rosen’s analyses here vindicate anthropology’s significant importance for understanding and confronting the present and future. He harnesses the central concepts of anthropology to illuminate contemporary jurisprudence from a view external to it. He then enters jurisprudential analysis clarifying how a term like community can have analytic teeth. For Rosen, community is not merely an add on after policy or case judgments are completed. In the 1980’s, the legal academy had as one significant thread a demand to “take rights seriously.” The point was that rights’ talk was honored only verbally and not materially. Rosen’s call here is to take culture seriously in jurisprudence itself. -- Leonard V. Kaplan, University of Wisconsin-Madison Bringing to bear stellar expertise both in anthropology and law, Lawrence Rosen deftly guides his readership through wide-ranging case studies persuasively showing how US law can benefit from greater theoretical sophistication regarding concepts like ‘community’ or ‘culture.’ Rosen’s argument must appeal to all jurists committed to a deep understanding of law. As a comparativist, I rejoice that someone of Rosen’s intellectual standing should compellingly address such challenging words as ‘community’ and ‘culture.’ These insights will stand me in excellent stead in the classroom. -- Pierre Legrand, Ecole de droit de la Sorbonne, France