{"product_id":"plunder-isbn-9781405178952","title":"Plunder","description":"\u003ci\u003ePlunder\u003c\/i\u003e examines the dark side of the Rule of Law and explores how it has been used as a powerful political weapon by Western countries in order to legitimize plunder – the practice of violent extraction by stronger political actors victimizing weaker ones.  \u003cul\u003e \u003cli\u003eChallenges traditionally held beliefs in the sanctity of the Rule of Law by exposing its dark side\u003c\/li\u003e \u003cli\u003eExamines the Rule of Law's relationship with 'plunder' – the practice of violent extraction by stronger political actors victimizing weaker ones – in the service of Western cultural and economic domination\u003c\/li\u003e \u003cli\u003eProvides global examples of plunder: of oil in Iraq; of ideas in the form of Western patents and intellectual property rights imposed on weaker peoples; and of liberty in the United States\u003c\/li\u003e \u003cli\u003eDares to ask the paradoxical question – is the Rule of Law itself illegal?\u003c\/li\u003e \u003c\/ul\u003e  Preface. \u003cp\u003eIntroduction.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e1. Plunder and The Rule of Law\u003c\/b\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAn Anatomy of Plunder.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003ePlunder, Hegemony, and Positional Superiority.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eLaw, Plunder, and European Expansionism.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eInstitutionalizing Plunder: The Colonial Relationship and the Imperial Project.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eA Story of Continuity: Constructing the Empire of Law (lessness).\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e2. Neo-liberalism: Economic Engine of Plunder.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe Argentinean Bonanza.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eNeo-Liberalism: An Economic Theory of Simplification and a Spectacular Project.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eStructural Adjustment Programs and the Comprehensive Development Framework.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eDevelopment Frameworks, Plunder, and the Rule of Law.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e3. Before Neo-Liberalism: a Story of Western Plunder\u003c\/b\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe European Roots of Colonial Plunder.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe Fundamental Structure of US Law as a Post-Colonial Reception.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eA Theory of Lack, Yesterday and Today.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eBefore Neo-Liberalism: Colonial Practices and Harmonious Strategies—Yesterday and Now.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e4. Plunder of Ideas and the Providers of Legitimacy\u003c\/b\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eHegemony and legal Consciousness.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIntellectual Property as Plunder of Ideas.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eProviding Legitimacy: Law and Economics.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eProviding Legitimacy: Lawyers and Anthropologists.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e5. Constructing the Conditions for Plunder\u003c\/b\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003ePlunder of Oil: Iraq and Elsewhere.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe New World Order of Plunder.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eNot Only Iraq: Plunder, War, and Legal Ideologies of Intervention.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eInstitutional Lacks as Conditions for Plunder: Real or Created?.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eDouble Standards Policy and Plunder.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003ePoverty: Justification for Intervention and Consequence of Plunder.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e6. International Imperial Law\u003c\/b\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eReactive Institutions of Imperial Plunder.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eU.S. Rule of Law: Forms of Global Domination.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe Globalization of the American Way.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAn Ideological Institution of Global Governance: International Law.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eHolocaust Litigation: Back to the Future.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe Swallowing of International Law by U.S. law.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eEconomic Power and the U.S. Courts as Imperial Agencies.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e7. Hegemony and Plunder. The Demise of the Rule of Law in the United States\u003c\/b\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eStrategies to Subordinate the Rule of Law to Plunder.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003ePlunder in High Places: Enron and its Aftermath.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003ePlunder in Even Higher Places: Electoral Politics and Plunder.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003ePlunder of Liberty: The War on Terror.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003ePlunder Undisrupted: The Discourse of Patriotism.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e8. Beyond an Illegal Rule of Law?.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eSumming Up: Plunder and The Global Transformation of the Law.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eImperial Rule of Law or the People's Rule of Law.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe Future of Plunder.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eNotes to Text.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eSelected Further Reading.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eDocumentary Film Resources.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIndex\u003c\/p\u003e  \"Plunder is a detailed, well written autopsy of how law and our legal system further strengthens the already powerful, while decimating those already located outside the reach of power. In the world of the post-economic collapse, \u003ci\u003ePlunder\u003c\/i\u003e is a painfully frightening roadmap decrying the dangers of the exact \"legal\" practices (derivatives, call options, etc.) that brought on the current economic crisis.\"  (\u003ci\u003eMultinational Monitor\u003c\/i\u003e, Jan - Feb 2009)\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  “Without doubt this is an important book … Mattei and Nader have produced a courageous, intellectually refined, and superbly critical book about one of the main instruments of society-building in our culture. The book should find a wide audience in law classes, and in graduate courses of sociology, anthropology, and political sciences.” (\u003ci\u003eJournal of the Royal Anthropological Society\u003c\/i\u003e, December 2008)  \u003cp\u003e“A profound work that will find its way into many disciplines. The book is less about plunder than about the ethics and values implicated in the clash between social justice and competitive economics. Mattei and Nader conclude with a call for strategies to increase historical awareness. This book is one of those strategies, and the more worth reading for it. Recommended.” (\u003ci\u003eChoice Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e, December 2008)\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Without doubt this is an important book … Mattei and Nader have produced a courageous, intellectually refined, and superbly critical book about one of the main instruments of society-building in our culture. The book should find a wide audience in law classes, and in graduate courses of sociology, anthropology, and political sciences.\" (\u003ci\u003eJournal of the Royal Anthropological Institute\u003c\/i\u003e)\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cb\u003eUgo Mattei\u003c\/b\u003e is Distinguished Professor of International and Comparative Law at University of California, Hastings and at the University of Turin, Italy. He is a widely published scholar in economic and political aspects of law and his work has been translated into many languages. His professional activities have included substantive periods of teaching and research in Europe, Africa, and Latin America.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eLaura Nader\u003c\/b\u003e is Professor of Anthropology at University of California, Berkeley and is possibly the leading world authority in Anthropology of Law. She has conducted fieldwork in Lebanon, Mexico, and the US and her groundbreaking work on harmony ideology and access to law and her unmatchable publication list make Nader one of the most interesting voices in the current academic scene.\u003c\/p\u003e  The Rule of Law has long been cherished in the US as the ultimate defender of civil liberty and the American way of life – a Rule of Law which no one can quite define, but everyone supports. In this provocative new book, Ugo Mattei and Laura Nader wage a frontal assault on this treasured belief in the sanctity of the Rule of Law, unflinchingly exploring its previously neglected dark side. They expose its intimate relationship with plunder – the practice of violent extraction by stronger political actors victimizing weaker ones – in the service of Western cultural and economic domination.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cp\u003eBoldly conceived and vibrantly written, \u003ci\u003ePlunder\u003c\/i\u003e dares to ask the paradoxical question – is the Rule of Law itself illegal? Mattei and Nader expose global examples of plunder: of Native American lands, to the plunder of oil in Iraq; of ideas in the form of Western patents and intellectual property rights imposed on weaker peoples; and of liberty and the demise of Rule of Law in the United States. This thought-provoking text is essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary law, politics, and social justice.\u003c\/p\u003e  \"Richly textured and strikingly original, \u003ci\u003ePlunder\u003c\/i\u003e draws on history, communication theory, and political analysis to show how U.S. policy expands influence and raids the pocketbooks of weaker nations. Even if we do not call it by its old name--imperialism--but globalization, free trade, or spreading democracy, the result is the same. And at the heart of this aggressively acquisitive policy lies a crown jewel of Enlightenment thought, the rule of law. A gripping read.\"\u003cbr\u003e –\u003cb\u003eRichard Delgado,\u003c\/b\u003e University of Pittsburgh  \u003cp\u003e\"This is a provocative, courageous, and path-breaking expose of the dark side of ‘the rule of law’, by two authors of wide-ranging practical experience and theoretical insight.\"\u003cbr\u003e –\u003cb\u003eGeorge Bisharat,\u003c\/b\u003e University of California, Hasting College of the Law\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"\u003ci\u003ePlunder\u003c\/i\u003e is the powerful product of interdisciplinary research that reveals how international law has become not an instrument of protecting the weak against the strong, but a means of legitimizing and enriching the powerful.\"\u003cbr\u003e –\u003cb\u003eDavid H. Price,\u003c\/b\u003e Saint Martin’s University\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Ugo Mattei and Laura Nader are advancing a profoundly disturbing message. The ‘rule of law’ is not only a barrier to achieving a just society, but an ideological mechanism for subjugating peoples and imposing injustice. I am impressed by their insights and especially by their courage.\"\u003cbr\u003e –\u003cb\u003eWilliam Greider,\u003c\/b\u003e author, \u003ci\u003eThe Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Through a sweeping exploration of global processes from colonialism to neo-liberalism, Plunder offers an eye-opening look at the “dark side” of the rule of law. This powerful and disturbing analysis of the ways law has legitimated and facilitated the appropriation of knowledge and property challenges widespread views of the law.\"\u003cbr\u003e –\u003cb\u003eSally Engle Merry,\u003c\/b\u003e New York University\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"A lucid and implacable analysis of the crucial relationship between law and life in the age of global capitalism. A beam of harsh light on the murky area where the rule of law comes into contact with and is shaped by power, violence and abuse.\"\u003cbr\u003e –\u003cb\u003eAldo Schiavone,\u003c\/b\u003e Istituto Studi Umanistici \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Wiley-Blackwell","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47989801943269,"sku":"NP9781405178952","price":107.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781405178952.jpg?v=1761785523","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/plunder-isbn-9781405178952","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}