The American Illness; Essays on the Rule of Law

This provocative book brings together twenty-plus contributors from the fields of law, economics, and international relations to look at whether the U.S. legal system is contributing to the country's long postwar decline. The book provides a comprehensive overview of the interactions between economics and the law-in such areas as corruption, business regulation, and federalism-and explains how our system works differently from the one in most countries, with contradictory and hard to understand business regulations, tort laws that vary from state to state, and surprising judicial interpretations of clearly written contracts. This imposes far heavier litigation costs on American companies and hampers economic growth.

F. H. Buckley, a Foundation Professor at George Mason School of Law, has been published by the Journal of Legal Studies, the International Review of Law and Economics, and Public Choice. He is also the author of four books, including The Morality of Laughter, and the co-author of four books.