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Island Press

Island Press began with a simple idea:knowledge is power—the power to imagine a better future and find ways for getting us there. Founded in 1984, Island Press’ mission is to provide the best ideas and information to those seeking to understand and protect the environment and create solutions to its complex problems. We elevate voices of change, shine a spotlight on crucial issues, and focus attention on sustainable solutions. Our network of authors includes E.O. Wilson, Paul Ehrlich, Sylvia Earle, Gretchen Daily, Jan Gehl, Daniel Pauly, and many others. By working closely with experts like these, Island Press has developed a comprehensive and growing body of knowledge—vital resources for all those working to protect the environment and create healthy communities.
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Family & relationships

Bean Trellis, My Mother-in-law

by Ma Ruifang

As the Chinese saying goes, "mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law are natural enemies". However, Bean Trellis, My Mother-in-law depicts the close bond of the author as daughter-in-law with her mother-in-law for more than three decades. Wherein lies the secret? "仁" Benevolence, "义" righteousness, "礼" courtesy, "智" wisdom, and "信" faith are constant beliefs of the Chinese people, which in the author's eyes are also the most admirable qualities of her mother-in-law, who is illiterate, yet hardworking, kind, and full of the wisdom of simple life. Her kindness and generosity is just the secret to the well-being of the whole family. Aside from describing the unique in-law relationship, this book also looks at the ups and downs of a big Chinese family from the 1970s to the 2020s. With humorous and documentary storytelling, the author wrote her life stories just like chatting with neighbors under the bean trellis. It is all-encompassing, containing traditional Chinese wisdom about getting along with the world, educating children, and even cooking, which could provide new reading experiences and inspiration for all readers.

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Humanities & Social Sciences

September 2023

International law in Europe, 700–1200

by Jenny Benham

Was there international law in the Middle Ages? Using treaties as its main source, this book examines the extent to which such a system of rules was known and followed in the period 700 to 1200. It considers how consistently international legal rules were obeyed, whether there was a reliance on justification of action and whether the system had the capacity to resolve disputed questions of fact and law. The book further sheds light on issues such as compliance, enforcement, deterrence, authority and jurisdiction, challenging traditional ideas over their role and function in the history of international law. International law in Europe, 700-1200 will appeal to students and scholars of medieval Europe, international law and its history, as well as those with a more general interest in warfare, diplomacy and international relations.

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Business, Economics & Law

May 2023

Cyber-espionage in international law

Silence speaks

by Thibault Moulin

While espionage between states is a practice dating back centuries, the emergence of the internet revolutionised the types and scale of intelligence activities, creating drastic new challenges for the traditional legal frameworks governing them. This book argues that cyber-espionage has come to have an uneasy status in law: it is not prohibited, because spying does not result in an internationally wrongful act, but neither is it authorised or permitted, because states are free to resist foreign cyber-espionage activities. Rather than seeking further regulation, however, governments have remained purposefully silent, leaving them free to pursue cyber-espionage themselves at the same time as they adopt measures to prevent falling victim to it. Drawing on detailed analysis of state practice and examples from sovereignty, diplomacy, human rights and economic law, this book offers a comprehensive overview of the current legal status of cyber-espionage, as well as future directions for research and policy. It is an essential resource for scholars and practitioners in international law, as well as anyone interested in the future of cyber-security.

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Business, Economics & Law

March 1905

The Path of the Law

by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

In The Path of the Law, Holmes discusses his personal philosophy on legal practice. The Common Law is a series of lectures that established Holmes's reputation as a witty and articulate writer.

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Humanities & Social Sciences

January 2013

Crime, Law and Society in the Later Middle Ages

by Anthony Musson, Edward Powell

This book provides an accessible collection of translated legal sources through which the exploits of criminals and developments in the English criminal justice system (c.1215-1485) can be studied. Drawing on the wealth of archival material and an array of contemporary literary texts, it guides readers towards an understanding of prevailing notions of law and justice and expectations of the law and legal institutions. Tensions are shown emerging between theoretical ideals of justice and the practical realities of administering the law during an era profoundly affected by periodic bouts of war, political in-fighting, social dislocation and economic disaster. Introductions and notes provide both the specific and wider legal, social and political contexts in addition to offering an overview of the existing secondary literature and historiographical trends. This collection affords a valuable insight into the character of medieval governance as well as revealing the complex nexus of interests, attitudes and relationships prevailing in society during the later Middle Ages.

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Business, Economics & Law

June 2023

Medicine, patients and the law

by Emma Cave, Margaret Brazier, Rob Heywood

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Business, Economics & Law

December 2020

Women before the court

Law and patriarchy in the Anglo-American world, 1600–1800

by Lindsay R. Moore

Women before the court offers an innovative, comparative approach to the study of women's legal rights during a formative period of Anglo-American history. It traces how colonists transplanted English legal institutions to America, examines the remarkable depth of women's legal knowledge and shows how the law increasingly undermined patriarchal relationships between parents and children, masters and servants, husbands and wives. The book will be of interest to scholars of Britain and colonial America, and to laypeople interested in how women in the past navigated and negotiated the structures of authority that governed them. It is packed with fascinating stories that women related to the courts in cases ranging from murder and abuse to debt and estate litigation. Ultimately, it makes a remarkable contribution to our understandings of law, power and gender in the early modern world.

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November 2014

The Rule of Law and Its Local Resources

by Su Li

Taking an interdisciplinary view and starting from plain social legal issues, this book discusses a series of important theoretical issues in China’s contemporary law and jurisprudence, such as legal circumvention and legal pluralism, legal localization, legal specialization, substitution between market and law, and jurisprudential methodology. In order to demonstrate the inseparable relationship between law and other disciplines, the author pioneered in introducing interdisciplinary thoughts to the jurisprudential study of China and integrated it into Chinese jurisprudence.

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January 2011

Sending Law to the Countryside: Research on China's Basic-Level Judical System

by Su Li

The author explores answers to these questions: What kind of law can effectively respond to the actual needs to construct a fair and orderly society? With a vast expanse of rural areas different from the urban areas, what should China do to deal with its basic judicial system for the rural society? Just like Mr. Fei Xiaotong, the pioneering sociologist and anthropologist, Professor Su Li stayed in the countryside, studied the rule of law at the grassroots level and solved practical problems, thus making his contribution in law for the grassroots people. This book presents ideas that are quite new and subversive to Chinese intellectuals who are accustomed to the principles of Western jurisprudence, and has aroused heated debate in China’s jurisprudential circle since its publication.

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Business, Economics & Law

April 2021

Cinematic perspectives on international law

by Olivier Corten, Francois Dubuisson, Martyna Falkowska-Clarys, Sufyan Droubi

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Business, Economics & Law

October 2016

The law of international organisations

by Nigel White

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Business, Economics & Law

February 2022

Latin America and international investment law

by Sufyan Droubi, Cecilia Juliana Flores Elizondo, Jean d'Aspremont, Sufyan Droubi, Iain Scobbie

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Business, Economics & Law

March 2022

The boundaries of international law

by Hilary Charlesworth, Christine Chinkin, Jean d'Aspremont

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Business, Economics & Law

April 2022

The law of the sea

by Robin Churchill, Vaughan Lowe, Amy Sander, Iain Scobbie

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Trusted Partner

Business, Economics & Law

April 2022

The law of the sea

by Robin Churchill, Vaughan Lowe and Amy Sander

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Trusted Partner

Business, Economics & Law

February 2021

International organisations, non-state actors and the formation of customary international law

by Sufyan Droubi, Jean D'Aspremont

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Humanities & Social Sciences

September 2024

Law across imperial borders

British consuls and colonial connections on China’s western frontiers, 1880-1943

by Emily Whewell

Law across imperial borders offers new perspectives on the complex legal connections between Britain's presence in Western China in the western frontier regions of Yunnan and Xinjiang, and the British colonies of Burma and India. Bringing together a transnational methodology with a social-legal focus, it demonstrates how inter-Asian mobility across frontiers shaped British authority in contested frontier regions of China. It examines the role of a range of actors who helped create, constitute and contest legal practice on the frontier-including consuls, indigenous elites and cultural mediators. The book will be of interest to historians of China, the British Empire in Asia and legal history.

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Humanities & Social Sciences

February 2022

International law in Europe, 700–1200

by Jenny Benham, Stephen Mossman, C. E. Beneš, T. J. H. McCarthy, Jochen Schenk

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October 2017

New Development of Marxist Jurisprudence in Contemporary China

by Jiang Chuanguang

Through an examination of the process of Sinicization of Maxism, Sinicization of Marxist legal theories with its theoretical gains is expounded and the connotation of Marxist jurisprudence’s new development in contemporary China is put forward, which provides vital directive values for building a socialist country under the rule of law and strengthens citizens’ legal sense.

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Humanities & Social Sciences

January 2018

Law and violence

by Christoph Menke, David Owen

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by Ma Ruifang

by Jenny Benham

Silence speaks

by Thibault Moulin

by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

by Anthony Musson, Edward Powell

by Emma Cave, Margaret Brazier, Rob Heywood

Law and patriarchy in the Anglo-American world, 1600–1800

by Lindsay R. Moore

by Su Li

by Su Li

by Olivier Corten, Francois Dubuisson, Martyna Falkowska-Clarys, Sufyan Droubi

by Nigel White

by Sufyan Droubi, Cecilia Juliana Flores Elizondo, Jean d'Aspremont, Sufyan Droubi, Iain Scobbie

by Hilary Charlesworth, Christine Chinkin, Jean d'Aspremont

by Robin Churchill, Vaughan Lowe, Amy Sander, Iain Scobbie

by Robin Churchill, Vaughan Lowe and Amy Sander

by Sufyan Droubi, Jean D'Aspremont

British consuls and colonial connections on China’s western frontiers, 1880-1943

by Emily Whewell

by Jenny Benham, Stephen Mossman, C. E. Beneš, T. J. H. McCarthy, Jochen Schenk

by Jiang Chuanguang

by Christoph Menke, David Owen

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