Hobart and William Smith Colleges

faculty books

THE LAW AND HIGHER ED

All the Campus Lawyers: Litigation, Regulation, and the New Era of Higher Education

Vice President and General Counsel Lou Guard ‘07 and Professor of Economics and former President of HWS Joyce P. Jacobsen
Harvard University Press, 2024

Selected by The New Yorker as a Best Book of 2024, All the Campus Lawyers details the impact of governmental regulation on U.S. campuses. Coauthored by Guard, who serves as HWS general counsel, and Jacobsen, an economist and former HWS president, the book explores the “lawyerization of higher education” and how colleges and universities can respond to legal pressures while remaining true to their educational missions.

“So much of what consumes the higher ed press today relates to legal issues on campuses. It is important for anyone concerned with higher ed to understand how these issues are impacting the core mission of colleges and universities,” says Guard.

All the Campus Lawyers was written during the spring semester of 2022 when Guard and Jacobsen were co- teaching “Law and Economics of Higher Education” at HWS. Guard, who also used material from the book for his seminar on the law of higher education at Cornell Law School, says that the collaboration “has been a real privilege. Joyce is a scholar of the highest caliber. I have valued our discussions and debate on these topics, and our friendship.”

Jacobsen, who spent much of the last decade in higher ed administration, found her firsthand knowledge of legal issues both inspirational and invaluable. She says the process “was a constant pleasure, even as we were writing about an enormous range of difficult and controversial topics. Lou thinks deeply about the law of higher education and has an encyclopedic understanding of the issues that it involves.”

YADAV’S BOLD NEW BOOKS

Liberalism’s Last Man: Hayek in the Age of Political Capitalism

Professor of International Relations Vikash Yadav
University of Chicago Press, 2023

The Politics of India under Modi: An Introduction to India’s Democracy, Economy, and Foreign Policy

Professor of International Relations Vikash Yadav and Jason A. Kirk
Lever Press, 2023

In his latest books, Professor of International Relations Vikash Yadav brings his expertise in international finance and politics to bear on the contemporary state of capitalism, as well as India’s political landscape since the election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

With Liberalism’s Last Man — which earned a rave review in the Wall Street Journal — Yadav offers “a bold and unconventional claim” on Friedrich Hayek’s most famous work, The Road to Serfdom, reframing its message for the 21st century. The WSJ review notes that Yadav’s book “performs an exceptional service in recasting [Hayek’s work] in a form that modern readers may find easier to appreciate than the original…. For too long Hayek has been treated — by admirers and critics alike — as a slogan or a caricature rather than a serious thinker. It’s time for a comeback.”

In The Politics of India under Modi, Yadav and his coauthor, Elon University professor Jason A. Kirk, guide readers through the aftermath of India’s 2014 elections, which pulled the nation’s politics rightward in ways “which have yet to be analyzed in depth academically by experts,” says Rina Verma Williams, a professor at the University of Cincinnati’s School of Public and International Affairs. “I see this book as a key first step in this process.”

More titles

The Enlightenment and Original Sin

Professor of History Matt Kadane
University of Chicago Press, 2024

An eloquent microhistory that argues for the centrality of the doctrine of original sin to the Enlightenment.

Aeschylus: Agamemnon

Associate Professor of Classics Leah Himmelhoch
Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023

With in-depth commentary and context, Himmelhoch’s new translation of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon offers an invaluable guide for students and teachers of “one of the most stirring, influential tragedies ever written.”

Castration Desire: Less Is More in Global Anglophone Fiction

Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Robinson Murphy
Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024

Drawing on the work of contemporary novelists and filmmakers, Murphy delivers a new perspective on gendered and environmental power dynamics.