In the past 25 years, settlement of nearly 25,000 complaints of employment discrimination has vastly advanced opportunities for minorities and women. In "Modern Law", Alfred W. Blumrosen traces the operation of the law transmission system - the process by which the general principles of equal opportunity written into the 1964 Civil Rights Act were translated into improved conditions for minority and female workers today. This route takes the reader through the passage of the law; the responses of workers, employers and the government; the interplay between courts, agencies and the legislature; and, finally, the enactment of the 1991 Civil Rights Act, perhaps hastened by the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas controversy. The interactions between the law and the social and economic forces it seeks to influence make up the components of the law transmission system. Blumtosen argues, however, that the equal employmnt laws are no longer sufficient for improving the lot of many Americans. National demographic changes and shifts in global economic patterns have limited the laws' effects. Blumrosen asserts that employment discrimination law has become increasingly more technical and less influential, while activists, lawmakers and others concerned with equal opportunity have not adequately focused their energies on the larger issues of urban problems, economic organisation and international transfer of employment. "Modern Law" should be valuable for those who study law, those who practice it, and for those working to develop and implement various kinds of legislation.
