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Fighting Faiths - (Cornell Paperbacks) by Richard Polenberg (Paperback)
About this item
Highlights
- Jacob Abrams et al. v. United States is the landmark Supreme Court case in the definition of free speech.
- About the Author: Richard Polenberg is Goldwin Smith Professor of American History at Cornell University.
- 464 Pages
- History, United States
- Series Name: Cornell Paperbacks
Description
About the Book
Jacob Abrams et al. v. United States is the landmark Supreme Court case in the definition of free speech. Although the 1918 conviction of four Russian Jewish anarchists--for distributing leaflets protesting America's intervention in the Russian...
Book Synopsis
Jacob Abrams et al. v. United States is the landmark Supreme Court case in the definition of free speech. Although the 1918 conviction of four Russian Jewish anarchists--for distributing leaflets protesting America's intervention in the Russian revolution--was upheld, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes's dissenting opinion (with Justice Louis Brandeis) concerning "clear and present danger" has proved the touchstone of almost all subsequent First Amendment theory and litigation.In Fighting Faiths, Richard Polenberg explores the causes and characters of this dramatic episode in American history. He traces the Jewish immigrant experience, the lives of the convicted anarchists before and after the trials, the careers of the major players in the court cases--men such as Holmes, defense attorney Harry Weinberger, Southern Judge Henry DeLamar Clayton, Jr., and the young J. Edgar Hoover--and the effects of this important case on present-day First Amendment rights.
Review Quotes
"A book crowded with intense, stubborn, vulnerable, idealistic, and mean-spirited people. . . . The kind of social legal history Dickens might have enjoyed."--Nat Hentoff, Washington Post Book World
"A marvelous . . . book that brings the people and the law to life. . . . It teaches us again, dramatically, that our Constitution lives because judges apply its eternal principles in the light of accumulated experience and wisdom."--Anthony Lewis, The New York Times
"Polenberg's abridgement is a successful distillation of the original sprawling transcript into a lean form that focuses our attention to acute questions of national loyalty and security, morality, ethics, politics, and human frailty."--Ellen Bales, Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences, 33:2
About the Author
Richard Polenberg is Goldwin Smith Professor of American History at Cornell University. He is the author, most recently, of The World of Benjamin Cardozo: Personal Values and the Judicial Process.