140 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE electronic technologies, have been able to transcend existing models and create an exciting new aesthetic idiom for our still-evolving electronic age. Julie Wosk Dr. Wosk is associate professor of humanities at State University of New York, Maritime College. Her book on 19th-century technology, art, and industrial design will be published this year. The Electronic Media and the Transformation ofLaw. By M. Ethan Katsh. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. Pp. 347; notes, bibliog raphy, index. $38.00. We stand so close to its operation in our day-to-day lives that we often fail to appreciate the gradual but sweeping metamorphosis continuously taking place in the great body of law that governs us. But, as has long been noted by legal scholars, “Society, in which law plays its part as a form of control, has never been static, and is not likely to become so in the future. It is an ever changing process. Accordingly, law, if it plays its part well, must likewise be an evolu tionary process, adjusting itself gradually to the changing society in which it operates” (William H. Spencer, A Textbook ofLaw and Business [New York, 1938], p. 4). M. Ethan Katsh’s book is a fascinating analysis of one aspect of the changes in law. Katsh looks in considerable detail at how evolving com munications media have accelerated the process. The treatment is at once historical and modern. Printing, for its part, is shown to have been es sential to the development of a relatively uniform body of law since it permitted the inexpensive and timely reproduction ofsystems ofreports. The growing uniformity, however, may for a time have slowed change, since one result was the reporting systems’ increased reliance on prece dents. Katsh cites Blackstone: “Precedents and rule must be followed, unless flatly absurd or unjust: for though their reason be not obvious at first view, yet we owe such a deference to former times as not to suppose they acted wholly without consideration” (p. 37). Nonetheless, Katsh sees that modern technologies have mitigated the effects of stare decisis and caused an “erosion of precedent.” New information is disseminated more rapidly, and more new knowledge can be taken into account in today’s decisions. There is relatively more interest in the present and the future because of the availability of current information. The low cost of storing, retrieving, and manip ulating vast amounts of data yields a far larger information base and, hence, more alternatives from which to select the precedent on which a current decision may rest. And extensive use of nonlegal materials no longer demands the tons of books Justice Brandeis was said to carry with him on vacation; these materials can now be accessed by TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 141 computerized searches that relieve the user of even comprehending their meaning. The reading of full cases is now all too rare. There really is more to the Katsh volume than this broad descrip tion of his general argument suggests. Consider the following thoughts on complex interactions between the material world and the world of ideas: Copyright ... is more than a means for protecting a property interest. It may be viewed as a response to a changing concept of authorship and to a condition of artistic and scientific progress that was largely absent before the print era. Obscenity laws surfaced not simply to suppress sexually explicit publications that were more widely available, but because morality was being redefined as law became secular and distinct from religious codes. . . . The definition of each legal doctrine implies a partic ular balance [among First Amendment concerns, property inter est, and social and moral values]. . . . The ultimate effect of the new communications environment will be a new kind of accom modation, a new balance, and a new meaning, [p. 171] There are also observations that are obvious once read and yet not often considered. Overall, this is a provocative and useful book. It builds on other literature in an open and imaginative way and clearly is worth reading for anyone interested in communications law and related issues of public policy. Almarin Phillips Dr. Phillips is Hower Professor of Public...