|
List Price: $25.00Amazon.com's Price: $17.75 You Save: $7.25 (29%)Prices subject to change.
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 342.730853
EAN: 9780465039173
ISBN: 0465039170
Label: Basic Books
Manufacturer: Basic Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 240
Publication Date: January 07, 2008
Publisher: Basic Books
Sales Rank: 17019
Studio: Basic Books
Related Items:
Editorial Review:
Product Description:
From one of the country's most esteemed experts on the First Amendment and the author of the classic Gideon's Trumpet, an eloquent essay on the importance of freedom of expression.
More than any other people on earth, Americans are free to say and write what they think. The media can air the secrets of the White House, the boardroom, or the bedroom with little fear of punishment or penalty. The reason for this extraordinary freedom is not a superior culture of tolerance, but just fourteen words in our most fundamental legal document: the free expression clauses of the First Amendment to the Constitution.
In Lewis's telling, the story of how the right of free expression evolved along with our nation makes a compelling case for the adaptability of our constitution. Although Americans have gleefully and sometimes outrageously exercised their right to free speech since before the nation's founding, the Supreme Court did not begin to recognize this right until 1919. Freedom of speech and the press as we know it today is surprisingly recent. Anthony Lewis tells us how these rights were created, revealing a story of hard choices, heroic (and some less heroic) judges, and fascinating and eccentric defendants who forced the legal system to come face-to-face with one of America's great founding ideas.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - Refreshingly readable
Studying the First Amendment can be a daunting task for those who wonder where to get on. This book is the answer. Written in a lucid, straightforward and engaging style (Lewis covered the Supreme Court for the NY Times for many years, winning a Pulitzer in the process, and then wrote a Times column for years after that), it presents not only the history of freedom of speech and the press, but also its current controversies: should we crack down on free speech to combat terrorism? Where do we draw ... Read More
Rating: - Outstanding
This book is an outstanding read. Concise, to the point and loaded with facts pertaining to the issue at hand make this a refresher course to bring the layman up to speed on his First Amendment knowledge and what it does and does not cover.
Rating: - Freedom? You Want Some of This..
Read this book(!) if you care about the freedoms we enjoy in America or wonder about the limits that have been placed on them. It is history.., but the book reads like a set of short stories. It is enlightening, insightful, surprising, engaging, and down right scary in parts (the whos and whys of many court decisions) . Whether your interests are in freedoms related to speech, the press, or privacy, or all of the above; this is your primer.
In this brief history of the First Amendment ... Read More
Rating: - Great perspective: Understanding how tenuous the right can be makes us more likely to protect it
One of my favorite things about reading history is getting a perspective on how new some ideas are even when they feel like they've been around forever. This book absolutely has that effect... and it's a really healthy thing.
Lewis does a nice job of laying out the history of free speech. He starts before the founding of the United States, but spends most of his time exploring the development of the right since the United States founding. What you see is how, even in two short centuries, ... Read More
Rating: - Let Every American Read This
Unless a person goes to law school, it is unlikely that he or she will learn the 200 year old history of the First Amendment...yet is is a fascinating and necessary history to learn. The thesis of the book is that our common notion of what "freedom of speech and press" means in America is not self evident law. In fact, the author explains, our right to criticise the government and its leaders was developed and protected by "activist judges."
Think about the role of activist judges - many ... Read More
|
Dewey Decimal Number: 342.730853
EAN: 9780465039173
ISBN: 0465039170
Label: Basic Books
Manufacturer: Basic Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 240
Publication Date: January 07, 2008
Publisher: Basic Books
Sales Rank: 17019
Studio: Basic Books