This is an undertaking of major proportions. It is visionary in its aspirations and impressive in its achievements... It is fascinating, entertaining, and a joy to own... it would be my desert island reading.-John Brigham,
Law & Society ReviewWinner of the 2011 PROSE Award for Excellence in the Social Sciences, as given by the Association of American Publishers
Winner of the 2011 PROSE Award for Law and Legal Studies, as given by the Association of American Publishers
Selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2011 in the U.S. Politics category.
Winner of the 2012 Scribes Book Award, as given by Scribes, The American Society of Legal Writers
The 2014 Coif Book Award given by the National Order of the Coif.
Representing Justice is a fascinating and ambitious study of the iconography of justice and what it reveals about attitudes towards a just society, impartiality and authority, from the Renaissance to the Mexican Muralists. In this engaging and eminently readable book, the authors show how emblems, icons and courthouses vividly embody the fundamentally democratic process of adjudication.-Ruth Weisberg, Roski School of Fine Arts, University of Southern California
How did a blindfolded lady holding scales became the ubiquitous image of justice? How have designs and decorations of spaces defined and redefined adjudication? Assembling monumental research, Resnik and Curtis powerfully show how images and buildings reflect and shape local and international justice across human history and how privatized dispute resolution, security concerns, and diminishing community participation erode the ideal and reality of courts' justice.-Martha Minow, Dean and Jeremiah Smith, Jr. Professor, Harvard Law School
In this visually stunning and provocative book, Judith Resnik and Dennis Curtis lead us to think in new ways about justice as symbol, justice as reality, and the connections as well as the distance between the two.-Linda Greenhouse, Joseph Goldstein Lecturer in Law, Yale Law School
This is a profoundly original and rich book. By looking at the public iconography of justice the book maps the evolution of courts and their relationship with public power and democracy as it has never been done. In this instance, an image is indeed worth a thousand words. Judith Resnik and Dennis Curtis offer us the images and articulate the words.-Miguel Poiares Maduro, Professor and Director of the Global Governance Programme European, University Institute Villa La Pagliaiuola
This book is a richly documented study of the iconography of Justice, from Antiquity through its medieval personification as a Cardinal Virtue to the emergence of her figure as an independent icon of a social value. Tracing the continuing resonance of that figure to the modern court room and in the public imagination, Representing Justice demonstrates the power of an image to embody ideals and, when those ideals are ignored, to stand as an indictment of injustice.-David Rosand, Meyer Schapiro Professor of Art History Emeritus, Columbia University