Category: Book Reviews

Book Review: ‘The Desire for Mutual Recognition – Social Movements and the Dissolution of the False Self’ – Peter Gabel

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Contributed by Elaine Quinn, editor of The Conscious Lawyer This review first appeared in the online magazine, The Conscious Lawyer, vol IV, October 2018. You can purchase this book through Routledge Taylor & Francis Group or through your favorite bookseller. “…our original longing from birth [is] to be seen by the other in a way that fully recognizes our humanity and our longing to simultaneously affirm our recognition of the other in the same way.” (Chapter 3, page 58) Before reading any further, take a moment to sit and look at the striking portrait below. This unusual and powerful invitation is one made to the reader in the first chapter of the book. It is an invitation that perhaps experientially captures the essence of what the author wants to convey – the experience of being truly recognized by a fully present human being, of deepening into our own natural presence… Continue reading

Book Review: Transforming Justice, Lawyers, and the Practice of Law by Marjorie A. Silver

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Review by Elaine Quinn This review first appeared in the online magazine, The Conscious Lawyer, vol II, May 2017. Available through Carolina Academic Press If I had an understanding before that law needs to change and that that change is already happening, this book has helped that understanding become a conviction. The book reinforces the message that our society is undergoing a shift in consciousness from an experiential sense of innate separateness to one of innate togetherness, that scientific evidence is available to prove the validity of this shift, and that our cultural institutions – law being one of the most essential – need to join with and support this shift rather than resist and hold it back. One of the core messages in the book echoes that of ‘The Ecology of Law – Toward a Legal System in Tune with Nature and Community’. That is that legal thought needs… Continue reading