Preventative State

ALAN DERSHOWITZ has been litigating, teaching, and writing about law and policy for more than 60 years. He has written 55 books and more than 1,000 articles. Many of today’s world leaders are among the 10,000 students he has taught. He has represented and advised presidents, prime ministers, and business leaders.Called “the world’s best-known lawyer” and its most prominent defender of civil liberties, he has litigated and won hundreds of cases in multiple countries. He has received numerous honorary degrees, medals, and other honors for his work. One such distinction was bestowed on him by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel who said: “If there had been a few people like Alan Dershowitz during the 1930s and 1940s, the history of European Jewry might have been different.”Most of his cases and causes have been pro bono, including his defense of dissidents, such as Natan Sharansky, Václav Havel, and Julian Assange.Dershowitz graduated first in his class at Yale Law School and was the editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal. He taught at Harvard for 50 years, where he offered courses on issues ranging from criminal, constitutional, family, and Jewish laws to psychiatry, neurobiology, mathematics, literature, philosophy, and even baseball. His primary academic interest has been on prediction and prevention of harmful conduct, which he developed into a course and taught during most of his career. Philosophically, he considers himself a constitutional libertarian, meritocratic egalitarian, and constructive contrarian.At age 86, he continues to write and consult, while spending more time with Carolyn, his wife of 39 years, his three children, and two grandchildren.

No one but Alan would seek to bring a common mode of thought to issues as diverse as bail, climate change, and terrorism.—Lawrence Summers, President Emeritus, Harvard UniversityAn urgently important book about how to balance the desire to have governments prevent crises with the need to safeguard fundamental civil liberties.—Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean, University of California-Berkeley School of LawA compelling capstone to Alan Dershowitz’s unparalleled analysis and experience throughout his distinguished career as a professor and litigator.—Nadine Strossen, John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law Emerita, New York Law SchoolHe elucidates the intricate issue of preventive law, while updating it to the unforeseen challenges of the twenty-first century.—Steven Pinker, Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology, Harvard UniversityDershowitz provides a brilliant roadmap for addressing the conundrum that maximizes both safety and liberty while recognizing that tradeoffs are inevitable.—Jack L. Goldsmith, Learned Hand Professor of Law, Harvard UniversityWith clarity, wisdom, wit and breadth of understanding, Alan Dershowitz argues that the legal system should be revamped to prevent-not just punish-wrongdoing.—Jesse Fried, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law, Harvard University