Book dossier

The Genesis of Justice

by Alan M. Dershowitz

7 Cain murders his brother--and walks . . .7 God gets angry--and millions die in flood . . .7 Abraham commits attempted murder--and is praised . . .7 Jacob deceives his father, then robs his brother--and gets away with it . . .Who among us has not questioned the "justice" found in the Book of Genesis? Now Alan M. Dershowitz, one of our most brilliant legal minds and author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Chutzpah, casts new light on these ancient tales. What he finds is . . . THE GENESIS OF JUSTICE Violence, lust, deception, murder, incest, and vengeance: These are the subjects of the biggest--and perhaps the juiciest--bestseller of all time, the Book of Genesis. Its oft-told tales have inspired and challenged humankind for generations. But perhaps never before has anyone examined these stories so provocatively from a modern legal perspective. Based on Alan Dershowitz's class at Harvard Law School, The Genesis of Justice shows how the Good Book is also a remarkable law book. According to Dershowitz, these seminal stories describe a people--and a God--struggling in a world before the invention of systematic rules, a primal place th