While there is a burgeoning scholarly literature on such topics as cultural pluralism, ethnic diversity, and the politics of recognition, there has been relatively little systematic attention given to ways that courts can embrace or thwart the maintenance of cultural traditions. Yet, as is often the case, court cases provide concrete examples of conflicts that capture the attention of the popular press and the public. If polygamy is part of a religious or cultural tradition, can state and federal laws forbid it within the United States? If a recent immigrant to the United States belongs to a tradition that permits an “honor killing” to punish the improper sexual behavior of a female relative, to what extent is that immigrant legally culpable? Many of the cases discussed in the book present extraordinarily difficult conflicts between cultural traditions. The author should be praised for presenting them unflinchingly.

The chief virtue of the book is the author's cataloging of these cases of cultural conflict. In her organizational scheme, Alison Dundes Renteln distinguishes among cases that involve homicide, children, drugs, animals, marriage, attire, and the dead. A few of these cases have risen to the U.S. Supreme Court. In the chapter on drugs, Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith (1990), which involved the use of peyote by Native Americans in religious ceremonies, is an example. But many of the dozens of cases that the author uses are cases that may have seen only a trial court, or perhaps a midlevel appellate court. She also sought to include cases from countries other than the United States, but these form a minority of examples.

Renteln argues that litigants should be able to offer a cultural defense, which “would require judges to consider the cultural background of litigants in the disposition of cases before them” (p. 5). Part of her argument is based on evidence that courts, on occasion, do already include consideration of the cultural background of a defendant in dismissing or lowering a criminal charge, or in reducing a sentence. But current practice is inconsistent. Often, courts will exclude testimony about a defendant's culture, or else the court will bend a traditional defense, like “diminished capacity,” to have the same effect as a cultural defense would. Open recognition of a cultural defense, Renteln argues, would improve the candor of courts and permit defense attorneys to bring in expert witnesses who could testify on the cultural background of a defendant. She also argues that a cultural defense is supported by the U.S. Constitution's guarantees of equal protection, freedom of association, religious freedom, effective counsel, and the right to a fair trial. The presentation of a cultural defense would not necessarily exonerate a defendant, but a cultural defense could provide a “partial excuse” and “juries could decide whether cultural factors were determinative in a defendant's behavior” (p. 188).

One example from the chapter on “Animals” is the 1986 federal prosecution of James Billie, a Seminole Indian, who hunted a panther that is listed as an endangered species on reservation land in Florida. The district court explicitly rejected Billie's cultural defense that claimed panther parts were important for a religious ceremony. The court found that Billie had not demonstrated that panther parts were required for the ceremony, but were only preferable. Renteln responds that the court ought to have acknowledged the religious significance of the panther parts and “then discussed an appropriate compromise,” because Seminole Indians, themselves, would not want the panther to become extinct (p. 99).

While the dozens of cases discussed are the book's chief virtue, the quick treatment of so many cases leaves important details and complexities unexplored. For example, a paragraph on a Canadian case describes a Sikh man who filed a complaint with the Canada Human Rights Commission against an airline because he was not allowed to board an aircraft unless he removed his kirpan, a small dagger that Sikhs wear as a matter of religious duty. Renteln provides a short summary of the conclusion of what she calls “a fascinating decision” (p. 153), though a fuller discussion of that decision would have helped her reader see some of the complexities involved in a court's attempt to evaluate cultural evidence. The commission's decision includes a discussion of the testimony provided by three expert witnesses on the beliefs and practices of Sikhs and on whether there is agreement among Sikhs on the size of the kirpan or whether or not the kirpan must have a sharp blade. The commission's own summary of this testimony was that Sikhs hold many different views regarding the kirpan and that there is no single agreed-upon position. A fuller discussion of this decision would have allowed Renteln to further develop her conception of how courts, in practice, could evaluate evidence of the importance of cultural traditions.

The extensive endnotes and bibliography will serve as an excellent resource for those seeking a summary of arguments both in favor of and opposed to a cultural defense. However, a few arguments opposed to the adoption of a cultural defense, or at least arguing for a more limited cultural defense, are given cursory treatment. For example, a significant number of scholars have argued that a cultural defense is likely to be invoked by men who are accused of violence against women. Men may, it is argued, use a cultural defense to defend cultural traditions of forced marriages, honor killings, and female genital cutting, for example. Susan Moller Okin's Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women? (1999) is perhaps the best-known representative of this view. While Renteln recognizes the argument at a number of points, Okin's work is dismissed quickly as an attempt “to trivialize the cultural defense by associating it mainly with female genital cutting and forced marriage” (p. 227).

The specific cases that the author summarizes and the bibliographic references make The Cultural Defense an extraordinarily valuable resource for further research into the role of courts in evaluating and using cultural evidence.