A lively and controversial overview by the nation’s most celebrated First Amendment lawyer of the unique protections for freedom of speech in AmericaThe 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 issues, exami...

Since 1971, when the Pentagon Papers were leaked to the New York Times and furious debate over First Amendment rights ensued, free-speech cases have emerged in rapid succession. Floyd Abrams has been on the front lines of nearly every one of these major cases, which is also to say that, more than any other person, he has forged this country’s legal understanding of free speech. Litigating everything from national-security and prior-restraint issues to controversies concerning the...

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...

The rights guaranteed in the First Amendment—including freedom of expression—are among the fundamental touchstones of our democracy. In Speaking Freely, Floyd Abrams, who for over thirty years has been our most eloquent and respected advocate for uncensored expression, recounts some of the major cases of his remarkable career—landmark trials and Supreme Court arguments that have involved key First Amendment protections.With adversaries as diverse as Richard Nixon and Wayne...

The Words We Live By takes an entertaining and informative look at America's most important historical document, now with discussions on new rulings on hot button issues such as immigration, gay marriage, gun control, and affirmative action.In The Words We Live By, Linda Monk probes the idea that the Constitution may seem to offer cut-and-dried answers to questions regarding personal rights, but the interpretations of this hallowed document are ne...

Iris Chang, bestselling author of The Rape of Nanking and tireless human rights activist, symbolized strength to many in the literary and social justice worlds. Her fearlessness made it all the more shocking when she committed suicide in 2004 at age thirty-six.Longtime friend and confidante Paula Kamen, author of the critically acclaimed All in My Head, reveals for the first time the private woman behind the bold international celebrity. She offers a tribute to th...

Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig investigates the most vexing problem in American democracy: how money corrupts our nation's politics, and the critical campaign to stop it.In an era when special interests funnel huge amounts of money into our government-driven by shifts in campaign-finance rules and brought to new levels by the Supreme Court in *Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission-*trust in our government has reached an all-time low. More tha...

Striking where the enemy is weakest and melting away into the darkness before he can react. Never confronting a stronger force directly, but using audacity and surprise to confound and demoralize an opponent. Operations driven by good intelligence, area knowledge, mobility, speed, firepower, and detailed planning, and executed by a few specialists with indigenous warriors—this is unconventional warfare.T. E. Lawrence was one of the earliest practitioners of modern unconventional wa...

"West Virginia was the child of the storm," concluded early Mountaineer historian and Civil War veteran, Maj. Theodore F. Lang. The northwestern third of the Commonwealth of Virginia finally broke away in 1863 to form the Union's thirty-fifth state. In Seceding from Secession: The Civil War, Politics, and the Creation of West Virginia, authors Eric J. Wittenberg, Edmund A. Sargus, and Penny L. Barrick chronicle those events in an unprecedented study of the social, legal, military,...

This timely book focuses on President Obama's deeply considered strategy toward Iran's nuclear program and reveals how the historic agreement of 2015 broke the persistent stalemate in negotiations that had blocked earlier efforts.The deal accomplished two major feats in one stroke: it averted the threat of war with Iran and prevented the possibility of an Iranian nuclear bomb. Trita Parsi, a Middle East foreign policy expert who advised the Obama White House throughout the talks an...

The saga of the flags on Iwo Jima has fascinated America for decades. Hammel himself grew up in the company of WWII veterans and has always been intrigued by the photo of the flag, which became a powerful symbol of patriotism and national pride. But the story of how the flag got there, and even the identity of the soldiers in the photo, has been muddied by history. Eric Hammel here sets the record straight, viewing complex events through the lens of the story of the infantry company in whi...

“The Negro worked as farm hand and peasant proprietor, as laborer, artisan, and inventor and as servant in the house, and without him, America as we know it, would have been impossible.”—W. E. B. Du BoisAlthough the Civil War marked an end to slavery in the United States, it would take another fifty years to establish the country’s civil rights movement. Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois was among the first generation of African American scholars to spearhead this movement towa...