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The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates (Kaplan Classics of Law) Xenophon Logic is a lawyer's best weapon. To this day, Socrates is the master of rhetoric. The ancient Greek historian Xenophon recorded the great philosopher's dialogues, which are read to this day as a guide for finding weakness in arguments and uncovering hidden truths. Law students have been reading Socrates as long as there have been lawyers. Like an attorney in a courtroom, Socrates used questions of his followers to teach them to think and reason. In The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates, Xenophon portrays the master dashing opposing arguments as well as mounting his own defense at trial. |
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The Law Frederick Bastiat Classic treatment of one of the main challenges to the survival of democratic government. 1850. |
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Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age Kevin Boyle An electrifying story of the sensational murder trial that divided a city and ignited the civil rights struggle
In 1925, Detroit was a smoky swirl of jazz and speakeasies, assembly lines and fistfights. The advent of automobiles had brought workers from around the globe to compete for manufacturing jobs, and tensions often flared with the KKK in ascendance and violence rising. Ossian Sweet, a proud Negro doctor-grandson of a slave-had made the long climb from the ghetto to a home of his own in a previously all-white neighborhood. Yet just after his arrival, a mob gathered outside his house; suddenly, shots rang out: Sweet, or one of his defenders, had accidentally killed one of the whites threatening their lives and homes.
And so it began-a chain of events that brought America's greatest attorney, Clarence Darrow, into the fray and transformed Sweet into a controversial symbol of equality. Historian Kevin Boyle weaves the police investigation and courtroom drama of Sweet's murder trial into an unforgettable tapestry of narrative history that documents the volatile America of the 1920s and movingly re-creates the Sweet family's journey from slavery through the Great Migration to the middle class. Ossian Sweet's story, so richly and poignantly captured here, is an epic tale of one man trapped by the battles of his era's changing times. Arc of Justice is the winner of the 2004 National Book Award for Nonfiction. |
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An Introduction to the Philosophy of Law Roscoe Pound Originally published: New Haven: Yale University Press, 1922. 307 pp. Pound's Introduction outlines the philosophy of law from Antiquity to the twentieth century. A written version of the Storrs Lectures delivered at Yale University during the academic year 1921-1922. |
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Enemies: A History of the FBI Tim Weiner Enemies is the first definitive history of the FBI’s secret intelligence operations, from an author whose work on the Pentagon and the CIA won him the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.
We think of the FBI as America’s police force. But secret intelligence is the Bureau’s first and foremost mission. Enemies is the story of how presidents have used the FBI as the most formidable intelligence force in American history.
Here is the hidden history of America’s hundred-year war on terror. The FBI has fought against terrorists, spies, anyone it deemed subversive—and sometimes American presidents. The FBI’s secret intelligence and surveillance techniques have created a tug-of-war between protecting national security and infringing upon civil liberties. It is a tension that strains the very fabric of a free republic.
From the Hardcover edition. |
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The Oldest Code of Laws in the World: The Code of Laws Promulgated by Hammurabi, King of Babylon, B.C. 2285-2242 Hammurabi Johns, C.H.W., Translator. The Oldest Code of Laws in the World: The Code of Laws Promulgated by Hammurabi, King of Babylon, B.C. 2285-2242. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1926. xii, 88 pp. Reprinted 2000 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. LCCN 99-053070. ISBN-13: 978-1-58477-061-9. ISBN-10: 1-58477-061-9. Cloth. $60. * The text, in English, of the Code of Hammurabi, which is the earliest code of laws. Probably issued about 1750 B.C., it includes 282 sections in an ordered arrangement. The index, created by the translator, may be viewed as a digest of the Code itself. |
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Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR's Great Supreme Court Justices Noah Feldman A tiny, ebullient Jew who started as America's leading liberal and ended as its most famous judicial conservative. A Klansman who became an absolutist advocate of free speech and civil rights. A backcountry lawyer who started off trying cases about cows and went on to conduct the most important international trial ever. A self-invented, tall-tale Westerner who narrowly missed the presidency but expanded individual freedom beyond what anyone before had dreamed.
Four more different men could hardly be imagined. Yet they had certain things in common. Each was a self-made man who came from humble beginnings on the edge of poverty. Each had driving ambition and a will to succeed. Each was, in his own way, a genius.
They began as close allies and friends of FDR, but the quest to shape a new Constitution led them to competition and sometimes outright warfare. SCORPIONS tells the story of these four great justices: their relationship with Roosevelt, with each other, and with the turbulent world of the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. It also serves as a history of the modern Constitution itself.
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Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate over Science and Religion Edward J. Larson The Scopes "Monkey Trial" marked a watershed in our national discussion of science and religion. In addition to symbolizing the clash between evolutionist and creationist camps, the trial helped shape the development of both popular religion and constitutional law in the United States, serving as a precedent for more recent legal and political battles. Pairing new archival material from both the Bryan prosecution and the Darrow defense with Larson's keen historical and legal analysis, Summer for the Gods offers a fresh interpretation of a pivotal event in American history. (20070201) |
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Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned John A. Farrell Drawing on untapped archives and full of fresh revelations, here is the definitive biography of America’s legendary defense attorney and progressive hero.
Clarence Darrow is the lawyer every law school student dreams of being: on the side of right, loved by many women, played by Spencer Tracy in Inherit the Wind. His days-long closing arguments delivered without notes won miraculous reprieves for men doomed to hang.
Darrow left a promising career as a railroad lawyer during the tumultuous Gilded Age in order to champion poor workers, blacks, and social and political outcasts against big business, Jim Crow, and corrupt officials. He became famous defending union leader Eugene Debs in the landmark Pullman Strike case and went from one headline case to the next—until he was nearly crushed by an indictment for bribing a jury. He redeemed himself in Dayton, Tennessee, defending schoolteacher John Scopes in the “Monkey Trial,” cementing his place in history.
Now, John A. Farrell draws on previously unpublished correspondence and memoirs to offer a candid account of Darrow’s divorce, affairs, and disastrous finances; new details of his feud with his law partner, the famous poet Edgar Lee Masters; a shocking disclosure about one of his most controversial cases; and explosive revelations of shady tactics he used in his own trial for bribery.
Clarence Darrow is a sweeping, surprising portrait of a legendary legal mind. |
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Gideon's Trumpet Anthony Lewis |