Laws are a part of every community and government. This thought-provoking volume provides an accessible guide to these rules for readers who haven’t been involved in civic engagement or aren’t aware of how the law functions. Readers will learn about both the history of laws and legislatures as well as modern civil and criminal laws. Interest-provoking sidebars enhance the text, adding to essential vocabulary as well as posing questions that promote critical thinking about the rules and laws of society. Meanwhile, carefully selected photographs serve to support reading comprehension and add to the appeal of the book design.

This second edition of the pioneering Hyatt and French Community Association Law coursebook is an ideal vehicle for introducing students to this increasingly important subject. From housing just 2 million Americans in 1970, common interest communities had grown to house 57 million, or 19% of the American population, by 2006. Community associations, which manage these communities, bear similarities to not-for-profit corporations, municipal governments, and trusts, but are different. The evolving body of community association law draws from all these fields but reflects the unique character and needs of common interest communities. Reflecting the expertise of its authors, the book combines academic rigor and practical knowledge. Primary materials include important cases, statutes (including proposed revisions to UCIOA), the Restatement (Third) of Property, Servitudes, and references to the growing body of literature on gated communities, co-housing developments, private governments, and other property regimes used to avoid the tragedy of the commons in groups that hold common property.

Community Property in the United States is the longest-running community property casebook that discusses community property law in all nine community property states: the eight states that derived their community property systems from Spanish-Mexican or Spanish-French colonial law (Arizona, California, Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Washington) and Wisconsin, which has community property laws based upon the Uniform Marital Property Act. The casebook covers five main subjects: an overview of what is community property, the classification of property as community or separate, the management regimes used for community property, the effects of termination of a community on community property, and external impacts that affect community property regimes, such as federal preemption and conflicts of law. For each of these broad areas, the casebook uses a comparative approach to examine the similarities and differences between the states so that readers may observe the strengths and weaknesses of the rules in their own state. Observation of these similarities and differences will enhance the student's understanding of a particular state's law and develop his or her critical faculties. Each chapter ends with real world problems to engage the reader with current issues facing community property jurisdictions.

Dr. Marshall Murphree is a prominent scholar in the elds of common property theory, rural development, and natural resource management. After graduating from the London School of Economics with a doctorate in social anthropology, he returned home to Zimbabwe to work as a missionary before joining the University of Zimbabwe, where he became director, and subsequently Professor Emeritus, of the Centre for Applied Social Sciences. Beyond Proprietorship presents a range of contributions to the May 2007 conference held to honour Murphrees work, and it conveys his central concerns of equality and fairness. The focus is on marginalised people living in poor and remote regions of Zimbabwe, but also includes important discussions about the policy implications of regional tenure regimes, and the place of local resource management in global conservation politics. The book is essential reading for anyone interested in the recent history and experience of remote area development, semi-arid agriculture, conservation, and wildlife utilisation in southern Africa.