Book excerpt: Edited by Ronald J. Rychlak, American Law from a Catholic Perspective is one of the most comprehensive surveys of American legal topics by major Catholic legal scholars. Contributors explore bankruptcy, corporate law, environmental law, family law, immigration, labor law, military law, property, torts, and several different aspects of constitutional law, among other subjects. Readers will find probing arguments that bring to bear the critical perspective of Catholic social thought on American legal jurisprudence. Essays include Michael Ariens’s account of Catholicism in the intellectual discipline of legal history, William Saunders’s assessment of human rights and Catholic social teaching, Hadley Arkes’s look at the place of Catholic social thought with respect to bioethics, and many others on major legal topics and their intersection with Catholic social teaching. American Law from a Catholic Perspective is essential reading for all Catholic lawyers, judges, and law students, as well as an important contribution to non-Catholic readers seeking guidance from a faith tradition on questions of legal jurisprudence. Based on well-developed and established ideas in Catholic social thought, the evaluations, suggestions, and remedies offer ample food for thought and a basis for action in the realm of legal scholarship.