Showing titles in History

My father, Oliver L. Brown, for whom Brown v. Board of Education is named, was a proud member of a group of a few hundred people, across the country, who took risks by taking a stand for what they believed. He died in 1961, just seven years after the case, so he didn't live long enough to know that Brown would become the foundation on which so much of this country's civil and human rights initiatives would rest. Brown v. Board became important for every citizen, not just African Americans.

The gripping story of one American lawyer’s obsessive crusade—waged at any cost—against Big Oil on behalf of the poor farmers and indigenous tribes of the Amazon rainforest. Steven Donziger, a self-styled social activist and Harvard educated lawyer, signed on to a budding class action...

Longlisted for the 2016 National Book Award for Nonfiction One of America’s great miscarriages of justice, the Supreme Court’s infamous 1927 Buck v. Bell ruling made government sterilization of “undesirable” citizens the law of the land In 1927, the Supreme Court handed down a ruling so...

Contrary to competing popular beliefs, police violence against African Americans has neither remained unchanged since the era of slavery nor is it a recent phenomenon disconnected from the past. In Bluecoated Terror, Jeffrey S. Adler draws on rich archival accounts to show how racialized police brutality is part of a larger system of state oppression with roots in the early twentieth-century South, particularly New Orleans.

This book is essential listening to bring forward the lessons from our past. A bold and unique collaboration between legal experts Michelle le Roux and Dennis Davis, it explores a series of landmark cases that came to define South Africa’s legal and political landscape. It examines how the law has been used and abused. Defining cases litigated in the apartheid past, in the constitutional era and right up to the recent days of state capture are examined.

After spending almost 20 years in city courtrooms reporting for the ABC on some of the country’s highest profile cases, in The Outback Court Reporter, Jamelle Wells takes you into our country courtrooms, from the grand sandstone edifices of Cobar and Grafton to the repurposed community halls and police stations in outback Queensland and the Northern Territory – introducing you to the court staff, the witnesses and the accused, in cases that shock, captivate and divide communities.

There are moments in American history when all eyes are focused on a federal court: when its bench speaks for millions of Americans, and when its decision changes the course of history. More often, the story of the federal judiciary is simply a tale of hard work: of finding order in the chaotic system of state and federal law, local custom, and contentious lawyering. The Federal Courts is a story of all of these courts and the judges and justices who served on them, of the case law they made, and of the acts of Congress and the administrative organs that shaped the courts. 

"From Rome to the West: Parallels in Empire, Mobility, and Rhetoric" is a meticulous exploration of the cyclical narratives that underpin the strategies and rhetorics of empires, drawing direct lines between the colossal Roman Empire and contemporary Western democracies. Delving deep into the Roman Republic's dualistic nature, it unveils the contradictions between internal democratic ethos and external imperialistic endeavors, offering readers a panoramic view of how power and morality intersected in the classical world.

Is examining the recent rise of wagering betting gambling in America. What changed to make it legal and the history of underground gambling operations through history.

Contracts and the Legal Odyssey: Unraveling the Interplay of Power, Ideology, and Justice delves into the historical development of the legal system with a particular focus on the increasing emphasis on contracts. The exploration is rooted in a deep understanding of how legal ideologies, the interests of socioeconomic elites, and societal norms have shaped the legal landscape.

Comment expliquer que le terme «?consentement?» occupe aujourd'hui une telle place dans le débat public, alors qu'il en était pratiquement absent il y a une dizaine d'années ? Et que signifie-t-il, au regard des usages multiples qui en sont faits, dans le champ de la philosophie, du droit, de la politique et du langage ordinaire ? Ces questions sont d'autant plus fondamentales que, selon le domaine dans lequel il est mobilisé, le consentement possède de nombreuses significations parfois sans rapport. Historiquement, l'idée de consentement remonte à l'Antiquité grecque et romaine.

An urgent and gripping look at the erosion of voting rights and its implications for democracy, told through the stories of 9 Supreme Court decisions—and the next looming case In The Court v. The Voters, law professor Joshua Douglas takes us behind the scenes of significant cases in voting...

In 1954, the Supreme Court's Brown decision ended segregated schooling in the United States, but regrettably, as documented in congressional testimony and transcripts, it also ended the careers of a generation of highly qualified and credentialed Black teachers and principals. In the Deep South and northern border states over the decades following Brown, Black schools were illegally closed and Black educators were displaced en masse. By engaging with the complicated legacy of the Brown decision, Leslie T. Fenwick illuminates a crucial chapter in education history.

In the UK, we have some bizarre laws that have littered the statute books of our sceptred isle throughout history. Not all of them have been repealed over the centuries. Some of them made perfect sense at the time they were introduced but seen through modern eyes, now appear archaic and draconian. Despite the great efforts of the Law Commission in England and Wales to review and recommend reforms for many of these outdated laws, there are centuries of law that must be painstakingly gone through.

In Agreeing to Disagree, Nathan S. Chapman and Michael W. McConnell detail the theological, political, and philosophical underpinnings of the Establishment Clause, state disestablishment, and the disestablishment norms applied to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment. In one of the most thorough accounts of the Establishment Clause, Chapman and McConnell argue that the clause is best understood as a constitutional commitment for Americans to agree to disagree about matters of faith.

No Supreme Court justice has come from humbler circumstances than Clarence Thomas, yet critics denounce him as the "cruelest justice," a heartless traitor to his race who cynically sacrifices justice to ideology. In this provocative new book, Judge Amul Thapar demolishes that caricature. Exploring the human stories behind twelve illustrative cases on which Justice Thomas has ruled, he demonstrates the coherence of Thomas’s judicial philosophy and the profound humanity on which it rests.

In A Legacy of Discrimination, leading constitutional scholars Lee C. Bollinger and Geoffrey R. Stone trace affirmative action's history and the legal challenges it has faced over the decades. They argue that in order to fully comprehend affirmative action's original intent and impact, we must reacquaint ourselves with the era in which it arose, beginning with the most important Supreme Court decision of the twentieth century, 1954's Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.

In the past few years, liberals concerned about the prospect of long-term conservative dominance of the federal courts have revived an idea that crashed and burned in the 1930s: court packing. Today's court packing advocates have run into a wall of opposition, with most citing the 1930s episode as one FDR's greatest failures. In early 1937, Roosevelt—fresh off a landslide victory—stunned the country when he proposed a plan to expand the size of the court by up to six justices. 

Adopted in 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment profoundly changed the Constitution, giving the federal judiciary and Congress new powers to protect the fundamental rights of individuals from being violated by the states. Yet, according to Randy Barnett and Evan Bernick, the Supreme Court has long misunderstood or ignored the original meaning of the amendment's key clauses, covering the privileges and immunities of citizenship, due process of law, and the equal protection of the laws.

Written as a primer for the uninitiated as well as those with some familiarity with the American judicial system, Saving the World One Case at a Time is a book about real people: the plaintiff-victims, the lawyers, the judges, and other participants in the legal system. It goes beyond the headlines and shows how the right of ordinary citizens to pursue justice in a court of law is a precious right worth fighting for.