Our friends over at HUP blog are talking about Judge Posner's forthcoming book A Failure of Capitalism
on the crash of 08. It's due out in May and it's a non-technical
explanation of the crash. Publishing in real time, so to speak.
reminds me of a theme that bloggers often crow about: blogs can respond
much more quickly than can traditional scholarly writing–like law
reviews and book publishers. Yet … there are some examples that
suggest when time is really of the essence, traditional law publishers
can respond. Judge Posner's book is one example. But my favorite
example is from an earlier crisis: Watergate. Charles Black wrote an essay on impeachment, which (as I now understand) the Yale University Press
rushed into "print." They got him page proofs to distribute to
Congress, as I recall. Back in those days, I guess it was called as "fastback."
Here's a brief description of this from Publisher's Weekly (as posted on the Yale University Press' website for Impeachment):
This
'fastback' written by Yale law school professor Black (run through the
press in a matter of days) is the most authoritative, clear and
incisive analysis of the process and significance of impeachment that
has yet appeared. An example of a cool legal intelligence applied to a
complex and thorny issue, it may also become a hot seller. Professor
Black does not approach impeachment wholly in hard legalistic terms;
when he does not specifically name President Nixon and his present
possible impeachment, his inference is clear (e.g., the possibility of
a bribe in the milk fund case clearly refers to Nixon). Black is
notably moderate (having supported 'executive privilege' at first, he
now feels Nixon has compromised his claim to it by surrendering
important confidential material). Here are congressional procedures in
impeachment, finely balanced views pro and con, contrary
interpretations of the Constitution, and altogether an invaluable
clarification of impeachment for the citizens whom polls only recently
showed were greatly confused on the subject. Appendices.
For some reason I had thought it was the Yale Law Journal, rather than Yale University Press–but that just goes to show how my memory's working these days.
Have you seen the Robert Solow review of the book in NYRB? I thought it was very good:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22655
A relevant quotation:
Judge Posner evidently writes the way other men breathe. I have to say that the prose in this book often reads as if it were written, or maybe dictated, in a great hurry.
Sometimes, even when things are moving quickly, I can't help but think that half again as much time for reflection might lead to twice as much value being gained.
For what it's worth, Charles Black and Richard Posner are two of a kind. We all know about Posner's speed. Rumor has it that Black wrote his great book on impeachment in a weekend.
Vladimir–that was one mighty productive weekend! I remember Black telling the story of writing impeachment and it's along the lines you said. Very fast–inspired, of course, by events that were unfolding at just that speed.