The Preventive State: The Challenge of Preventing Serious Harms While Preserving Essential Liberties by Alan Dershowitz

[johnkarls]

.

I propose that we read “The Preventive State: The Challenge of Preventing Serious Harms While Preserving Essential Liberties” by Alan Dershowitz (Encounter Books 5/20/2025 - 240 pages but probably many fewer sans notes & index - $24.99 + shipping or $16.19 Kindle from Amazon.com).

Disclaimer – Yes, Prof. Dershowitz’ career at Harvard Law School began 1964 teaching first-year criminal law but, although that was my first year at HLS, I never had him for that or any other course.

BTW, he always refused to defend any client more than once (including Pres. Trump for his first impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate) for the oft-expressed reason that he did not want to become a permanent defender of any organized-crime malfeasor.

Accordingly, he handed off many such defenses to Harvey Silverglate (a regular participant in the weekly Monday Zoom chats of my HLS Class of 1967) to whom he then offered occasional advice.


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Book Description per Amazon.com - PLEASE SEE PROF. DERSHOWITZ' DESCRIPTION IN THE IMMEDIATELY-FOLLOWING SECTION

#1 Best Seller in Comparative Politics (this 22 days prior to publication)

You shall thank Alan Dershowitz for writing this [valuable] book.
—Stephen Breyer, Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court

If reliable but uncertain intelligence predicted a mass casualty terrorist attack and indicated likely suspects, what preventive actions would be constitutionally authorized? Detention? Interrogation? Torture? What if the attack involved a weaponized virus? Should the government compel widespread inoculation that might kill hundreds of people while saving millions? What if an article describing how to circumvent the inoculation mandate was about to be published? Should censorship of the article be authorized?

These are the sorts of questions Alan Dershowitz has been asking for more than 60 years, in his teaching, writing, and litigation. Now, at age 86, he has written his magnum opus. In it, he suggests an overarching jurisprudential framework that would set limits to the ballooning power of what he calls “the preventive state.”

This important book offers unprecedented insights into one of the most underexamined developments of our age: the growing magnitude and frequency of cataclysmic threats, coupled with the increasingly effective—but increasingly intrusive—tools intended to predict and prevent them.

Dershowitz responds to the urgent need for a jurisprudence that provides balance and accountability as both dangers and preventive capabilities increase, threatening our security and our liberties. This masterful analysis should be read by everyone who cares about security, liberty, and democracy.


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Author Prof. Dershowitz' Description In 4/27/2025 Interview With Mark Levin

Prof. Dershowitz –

The thesis of the book is that you cannot wait for Iran to develop nuclear weapons and try to deter it. You don’t deter people who want to die. When Rafsanjani, the head of Iran, said (NB: Rafsanjani was President of Iran 1989-1997 but Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been the Supreme Leader since Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s death in 1989) – "When Iran develops nuclear weapons they will bomb Israel – “one bomb state” – kill 2 million people – then Israel will retaliate and kill 10 million Muslims but then it’s worth it." You can’t deter people like that.

You have to apply the Begin Doctrine. (NB: Menachem Begin was Israeli Prime Minister 1977-1983.) He said Israel cannot depend on deterrence. It cannot deter or kind of control a nuclear enemy. It has to prevent the enemy from getting nuclear bombs.

Just like if England and France had gone after Nazi Germany in the late 1930’s before it became powerful, they would have saved hundreds of millions of lives.

I think the same thing is true. If Israel is allowed to destroy Iran’s nuclear capability, history will demonstrate that it has saved many lives, not only Israeli and Iranian lives, but lives all through the Middle East and around the world. This is the time for prevention.

Israel became The Preventative State as the result of the Begin Doctrine and it has to use preventive tactics and in my book, The Preventative State, I go through all the reasons why prevention is essential to saving lives instead of deterrence and that we are moving toward prevention as we create more cataclysmic threats to the world like a nuclear Iran and we have the capacity. Israel can destroy Iran’s nuclear reactor with minimal casualties and it should do so and the United States should stand behind it and I get very worried when there are people talking in President Trump’s ears who are saying – “No, no, no, we can contain, we can control, we can negotiate.” No, you cannot do that with Iran. There is only one answer and that is that Iran’s nuclear capacity must be prevented.

Mark Levin –

And the other thing Alan is if they’re wrong, the people whispering in the President’s ear – consequences to the world are dire. They are dire for a thousand years, not just dire tomorrow. If you and I are right, it’s case over. It’s done. The hard work’s been done.

And you know what else? It’ll have to be done more than once because there are going to be other terrorist regimes over time that have access to the technology and your Prevention Doctrine and the Begin Doctrine is (sic) going to have to win the day if we’re going to save humanity.

They’re building intercontinental ballistic missiles to hit the United States – not Tel Aviv. That’s exactly what they’re doing. Final word.

Prof., Dershowitz –

Prevention is the key to saving lives today. You have to make sure the preventative measures you take don’t endanger basic liberties, but Israel has proved they can do it, the United States has proved you can do it, and the negative is that our failure to do it in the 1930’s produced Nazism, the Holocaust and so many preventable deaths. Let’s make sure we don’t do that again and I think The Preventative State using prevention in the right way can save lives and benefit humanity. That’s our future.

Mark Levin –

And it can prevent a World War III because if Iran gets nuclear weapons, the others are going to want nuclear weapons and these regimes, not one of them is a humane regime.


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Author Bio per Amazon.com

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.


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Book Review Excerpts per Amazon.com

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 University

An 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 Law

A 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 School

He 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 University

Dershowitz 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 University

With 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

[johnkarls]

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Prof. Dershowitz will be talking about his book at “high noon” EDT on Wed June 11.

If you would like to attend and aren’t a member, please let me know and I’ll sign you up.

The NYC Harvard Club Notice –

NOON TALK: Alan Dershowitz on How to Protect Liberty While Preventing Catastrophe

Wednesday, June 11 @ 12:00 pm – 01:00 pm ET

How far should the government go to prevent the next crisis—without crushing our freedoms?

Join legendary constitutional lawyer and civil liberties advocate Alan Dershowitz as he presents his boldest work yet: The Preventive State, a timely and provocative new book exploring how democracies can respond to looming threats—terrorism, pandemics, climate disaster—without sacrificing the liberties that define them.

In an era of ballooning surveillance powers and escalating global dangers, Dershowitz lays out a powerful framework to balance security and freedom.

Backed by a lifetime of legal scholarship and courtroom battles, this talk is a must-attend for anyone concerned about the future of law, liberty, and the limits of state power.

As Justice Stephen Breyer puts it: “You shall thank Alan Dershowitz for writing this book.”

Meagan Hill, Program Committee