A concise, lively, and bracing exploration of an issue bedeviling our cultural landscape–plagiarism in literature, academia, music, art, and film–by one of our most influential and controversial legal scholars. Best-selling novelists J. K. Rowling and Dan Brown, popular historians Doris Kearns Goodwin and Stephen Ambrose, Harvard law professor Charles Ogletree, first novelist Kaavya Viswanathan: all have rightly or wrongly been accused of plagiarism–theft of intellectual property–provoking widespread media punditry. But what exactly is plagiarism? How has the meaning of this notoriously ambiguous term changed over time as a consequence of historical and cultural transformations? Is the practice on the rise, or just more easily detectable by technological advances? How does the current market for expressive goods inform our own understanding of plagiarism? Is there really such a thing as “cryptomnesia,” the unconscious, unintentional appropriation of another’s work? What are the mysterious motives and curious excuses of plagiarists? What forms of punishment and absolution does this “sin” elicit? What is the good in certain types of plagiarism?

Provocative, insightful, and extraordinary for its clarity and forthrightness, The Little Book of Plagiarism is an analytical tour de force in small, the work of “one of the top twenty legal thinkers in America” ( Legal Affairs ), a distinguished jurist renowned for his adventuresome intellect and daring iconoclasm.

理查德·波斯纳，先后以最优生和年级第一名毕业于耶鲁大学英文系(1959)和哈佛大学法学院(1962)。曾任美国联邦最高法院大法官助理、联邦政府律师、斯坦福大学法学院副教授(1968)、芝加哥大学法学院教授(1969)和讲座教授。1981年出任美国联邦第七巡回区上诉法院法官至今(1993～2000年任首席法官)，同时担任芝加哥大学法学院高级讲师。

波斯纳是法律经济学的主要创建者之一；同时也是“法律与文学”和实用主义法学的领军人物。他的著作众多，辐射广泛，有所谓“一个人的智库”之称；他的法律学术和实践重塑了美国的法学和法律。

“他是著述最丰的联邦法官，前无古人。任职上诉法院、仍属最高产的法学家之列，同样前无古人。如果以引证率测度影响力，那么当仁不让，波斯纳是在世的最有影响的法学家。”(劳伦斯·莱西格语)