Table of Contents (pdf)

From the Forward
by Charles Lemert
Wesleyan University
Professor of Sociology

David Westbrook’s/Between Citizen and State: An Introduction to the Corporation, with its eye-opening clarity, its verve and humor, and its overall brilliance will serve readers who desire, as one should, to understand the corporations. In a world in which transnational corporations seem to hold upper hand, this would exclude practically no one.

* * *
It is this sort of thinking for which Weber and Durkheim, even Marx, were reaching when they established the modern social sciences on the loose sand of the Between of structures and individuals.

* * *
The service this book renders is all the more cultivated by its astonishing
kindness. I mean nothing sentimental
by this. But it must be noted that this wonderful book takes the long tradition and vexed meditations of social scientists by the scruff of the neck and washes away their failures with fresh warm water.

* * *
I do not assume that David Westbrook is the only lawyer who understands
these things. But surely he is among the best at exposing them in ways that
we occasional outlaws and regular innocents as to the nature of the Law can understand. Not only that but anyone who tries to figure out what is
wrong with most social sciences as they are taught and written would do well to
study this book for its contributions to a kind but serious theory of the social
Between.

Reviews

“A lyrical description of the basic issues of corporation law ... more

Brandon Becker
Co-chair of the Securities Regulation Department,
WilmerHale and former Director of the
Division of Market Regulation at the SEC

"The profound mind at work ... tests thin convention with thick critique..." more

Lawrence A. Cunningham
Professor of Law, George Washington University

"'Between Citizen and State' is a wonderfully written book ... " more

Rosa M. Lastra
Professor of International
Financial and Monetary Law
Centre for Commmercial Law Studies
Queen Mary, University of London

"'In this brilliant and original book David Westbrook makes
visible the diverse logics that organize actors even in settings,
such as the corporation, where we might assume one single
such logic..." more

Saskia Sassen
Columbia University
Author of "Territory, Authority, Rights"

 

“"... Westbrook’s charming, yes charming, introduction to the corporation offers everything ... ” more

Susan Silbey
Department Head
Professor of Sociology and Anthropology, M.I.T.