The Walled Garden

In this book, Friedman and Grossman sketch the historical development of the concept of privacy and the issues now surrounding it. The premise of this book is that privacy is a social construct—one that is relatively recent and would have been incomprehensible in earlier societies…. All in all, this book sheds light on a part of liberal societies that is both hotly contested and taken for granted.Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty.

* Choice Reviews *

This is a wonderfully ambitious and remarkably comprehensive book that examines multiple aspects of privacy. By tracing the meaning of privacy in contexts ranging from public nudity to airport security to revenge porn, and offering a comparative perspective, the book compellingly shows that privacy is a social and cultural concept. The authors have written an admirable overview of historical and contemporary interpretations of privacy with a provocative thesis.

-- Naomi R. Cahn, University of Virginia School of Law

The Walled Garden provides a fascinating exploration of how the law shapes and is shaped by evolving cultural understandings of privacy. As Lawrence M. Friedman and Joanna L. Grossman make clear in this engaging book, America’s willingness to protect privacy, or tolerate invasions, has fluctuated over time and across contexts. You will never think about keeping a secret, posing for a photograph, or walking down the street the same way again.

-- Jill Elaine Hasday, University of Minnesota Law School, author of Intimate Lies and the Law

A book that covers sex, lies, public nudity, revenge porn, transgender identity, national security surveillance, and all kinds of videotapes – while slipping in a sophisticated legal analysis of the ever elusive right to privacy – what fun! Students of privacy everywhere will enjoy his book.

-- June Carbone, University of Minnesota Law School

The Walled Garden is an enthralling exploration of the laws of privacy and how we construct rights and obligations out of our secrets. Lawrence Friedman and Joanna Grossman are warm, erudite, witty, and brimming with insight—the best of guides to the ideas, expectations, and rules that define us as individuals and as a society yet are compromised with every website we visit, every post that we like on social media, and every step we take with cell phones in hand.

-- Daniel J. Sharfstein, Vanderbilt University Law Sc