Watergate, 1973–1974 explores America’s most dramatic constitutional crisis of the twentieth century: the investigation of the Watergate burglary. The scandal brought the nation’s political system to the brink of disaster: the US president had defied established norms of democracy, and his enemies and allies alike struggled to hold together the country’s fragile constitutional order.In the game, students portray members of Congress,journalists, and key figures from the Nix...

The virtue of mercy is widely admired, but is now marginalized in contemporary public life. Yet for centuries it held a secure place in western public discourse without implying a necessary contradiction with justice. Alex Tuckness and John M. Parrish ask how and why this changed. Examining Christian and non-Christian ancient traditions, along with Kantian and utilitarian strains of thought, they offer a persuasive account of how our perception of mercy has been transformed by Enlightenmen...

Problems of individual moral choice have always been closely bound up with the larger normative concerns of political theory. There are several reasons for this continuing connection. First, the value conflicts involved in private moral choice often find themselves reproduced on the public stage: for example, states may find it difficult to do right by both justice and mercy in much the same way individuals do. Second, we frequently find conflicts among the values at stake in individual li...

Manipulation is a source of pervasive anxiety in contemporary American politics. Observers charge that manipulative practices in political advertising, media coverage, and public discourse have helped to produce an increasingly polarized political arena, an uninformed and apathetic electorate, election campaigns that exploit public fears and prejudices, a media that titillates rather than educates, and a policy process that too often focuses on the symbolic rather than substantive....

Acclaimed journalist Jeffrey Toobin takes us into the chambers of the most important—and secret—legal body in our country, the Supreme Court, revealing the complex dynamic among the nine people who decide the law of the land. An institution at a moment of transition, the Court now stands at a crucial point, with major changes in store on such issues as abortion, civil rights, and church-state relations. Based on exclusive interviews with the justices and with a keen sense of the Court’s hi...

A "brilliant" examination of the growth of presidential power from George Washington to George W. Bush, by a Pulitzer Prize–winning historian ( Newsweek).Over the course of two centuries, the power of the president of the United States has grown exponentially. From George Washington to Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon to George W. Bush, presidential power has both served and harmed the US Constitution. But is the current role of the POTUS ...

From the prizewinning author of The Nine, a gripping insider's account of the momentous ideological war between the John Roberts Supreme Court and the Obama administration.From the moment John Roberts, the chief justice of the United States, blundered through the Oath of Office at Barack Obama's inauguration, the relationship between the Supreme Court and the White House has been confrontational. Both men are young, brilliant, charismatic, charming, determ...

A scathing critique of the two-tiered system of justice that has emerged in America that sanctions immunity at the top and mercilessness for everyone else."The most important voice to have entered the political discourse in years." —Bill MoyersThe founding principle of the United States was that the rule of law would be the great equalizer in American life, the guarantor of a common set of rules for all. But over the past four decades, this...

The Brethren is the first detailed behind-the-scenes account of the Supreme Court in action.Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong have pierced its secrecy to give us an unprecedented view of the Chief and Associate Justices—maneuvering, arguing, politicking, compromising, and making decisions that affect every major area of American life.

The nation's most celebrated First Amendment lawyer"explores the American right to free speech in this thoughtful and concise volume" ( Publishers Weekly).The right of Americans to voice their beliefs without government approval or oversight is protected under what may well be the most honored and least understood addendum to the US Constitution—the First Amendment. Floyd Abrams, a noted lawyer and award-winning legal scholar specializing in First Amendment...

"A brilliant lawyer...A new and very important book. I would encourage all people...to read!"—President Donald J. Trump“Absolutely amazing…. If you care about justice...read this book.”—Sean Hannity“Maybe the question isn’t what happened to Alan Dershowitz. Maybe it’s what happened to everyone else.”—PoliticoAlan Dershowitz has been called “one of the most prominent and consistent defenders of civil liberti...

An unprecedented work of civil rights and legal history, Presumed Guilty reveals how the Supreme Court has enabled racist policing and sanctioned law enforcement excesses through its decisions over the last half-century.Police are nine times more likely to kill African-American men than they are other Americans—in fact, nearly one in every thousand will die at the hands, or under the knee, of an officer. As eminent constitutional scholar Erwin Chemerinsky ...