Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America (Modern Library Paperbacks)

At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America (Modern Library Paperbacks)

by Philip Dray

Winner of the Southern Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction This extraordinary account of lynching in America, by acclaimed civil rights historian Philip Dray, shines a clear, bright light on American history’s darkest stain—illuminating its causes, perpetrators, apologists, and victims. Philip Dray also tells the story of the men and women who led the long and difficult fight to expose and eradicate... (more)

Contempt of Court: The Turn-of-the-Century Lynching That Launched a Hundred Years of Federalism

Contempt of Court: The Turn-of-the-Century Lynching That Launched a Hundred Years of Federalism

by Mark Curriden

In this profound and fascinating book, the authors revisit an overlooked Supreme Court decision that changed forever how justice is carried out in the United States. In 1906, Ed Johnson was the innocnet black man found guilty of the brutal rape of Nevada Taylor, a white woman, and sentenced to die in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Two black lawyers, not even part of the original defense, appealed to the Supreme Court... (more)

Drag King Dreams

by Leslie Feinberg

Long before films like Boys Don't Cry alerted the world to the challenges--and extreme violence--transgendered people experience, Leslie Feinberg's blockbuster classic, Stone Butch Blues, offered a harrowing window onto transgendered life. Her brutally candid autobiographical novel about a blue-collar butch lesbian coming of age in pre-Stonewall Buffalo, New York electrified readers everywhere, particularly ... (more)

The Haymarket Tragedy

by Paul Avrich

What makes <this book> so valuable is that Avrich has shown us a time when anarchism breathed life into American politics, and not simply when it drew its last breath in Chicago. -- Review

Lucasville: The Untold Story of a Prison Uprising

Lucasville: The Untold Story of a Prison Uprising

by Staughton Lynd

In 1993 prisoners took control of the maximum-security prison in Lucasville, Ohio. Their 11-day ordeal started with a dispute between the warden and Muslim prisoners and ended with a negotiated settlement, but only after nine prisoners and one hostage had been killed. In the months that followed, leaders of the uprising were singled out by the state, tried, and sentenced to death despite compelling evidence of... (more)

The Silent and the Damned: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank

The Silent and the Damned: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank

by Robert S Frey

This is the chilling and unforgettable story of the sensational trial, unjust conviction, and lynching of Leo Frank for the murder of his thirteen-year-old employee Mary Phagan.

Justices William J. Brennan, Jr. and Thurgood Marshall on Capital Punishment

Justices William J. Brennan, Jr. and Thurgood Marshall on Capital Punishment

by Alan I. Bigel

Justices William J. Brennan, Jr. and Thurgood Marshall are the only members of the United States Supreme Court who categorically opposed the death penalty for the duration of their tenure. Both wrote a large number of intellectually provocative opinions which examined a wide range of legal and moral arguments frequently raised concerning capital punishment. This book is a meticulous examination of their opinions... (more)

The Trail of Bruno Richard Hauptmann (spine title: The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case)

The Hangman's Knot: Lynching, Legal Execution, and America's Struggle with the Death Penalty

The Hangman's Knot: Lynching, Legal Execution, and America's Struggle with the Death Penalty

by Eliza Steelwater

Public executions were once commonplace American spectacles. In one instance, Puritan clergymen convicted and executed nineteen people for the "crime" of witchcraft. On the other side of the country many years later, San Francisco's city fathers held "official" vigilante hangings. But today, executions are rigidly controlled bureaucratic procedures authorized by the state. In The Hangman's Knot: Lynching,... (more)

Battered Women and Feminist Lawmaking

by Elizabeth M. Schneider

As recently as the 1960s the harm of domestic violence was not legally recognized. This book examines how pathbreaking feminist activists and lawyers have brought the severity of domestic violence to public attention since then and have led the U. S. Congress, the Supreme Court, and the United Nations to address the problem. Winner of the 2000 Professional/Scholarly Publishing Award of the Association of American... (more)

Saving Bernice: Battered Women, Welfare, and Poverty

Saving Bernice: Battered Women, Welfare, and Poverty

by Jody Raphael

This is the story of Bernice, a former welfare mother and survivor of domestic violence, and her arduous journey to escape from, and ultimately triumph over, years of battering, poverty, and welfare. Skillfully interweaving Bernice's own eloquent words about her harrowing abuse with descriptions of other women's similar experiences and a rich synthesis of statistical findings, Jody Raphael demonstrates... (more)

The Nuremberg Trial

by Ann Tusa, John Tusa

Published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Nuremberg trials, a new edition of a history of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg after the Second World War, drawing on a variety of sources, including extensive interviews with surviving participants.

The Parkman murder: Trial of Prof. John W. Webster, for the murder of Dr. George Parkman, November 23, 1849 : before the Supreme Judicial Court, in the City of BostonJohn White Webster

The Parkman murder: Trial of Prof. John W. Webster, for the murder of Dr. George Parkman, November 23, 1849 : before the Supreme Judicial Court, in the City of Boston

by John White Webster

Evil Angels The Case of Lindy ChamberlainJohn Bryson

Evil Angels The Case of Lindy Chamberlain

by John Bryson

Legal Lynching: The Death Penalty and America's Future

Legal Lynching: The Death Penalty and America's Future

by Jesse Jackson

An urgent, eloquent call for the abolition of the death penalty in America, from the father and son who are leading the fight against state-sponsored execution. With public opinion polls showing opposition to the death penalty at its highest level in twenty years, this timely book by two of America's most important civil rights leaders and the Nation's criminal justice reporter makes a passionate and... (more)

Imagery of Lynching: Black Men, White Women, and the Mob

Imagery of Lynching: Black Men, White Women, and the Mob

by Dora Apel

"Dora Apel mounts a careful and convincing analysis of a set of extremely difficult, often literally terrifying images, and provides the necessary contexts for readers to understand the practice of lynching and the terms of its representation by photographers and artists."—Richard Meyer, author of Outlaw Representation: Censorship and Homosexuality in Twentieth-Century American Art "This book makes a major... (more)

Legacies of Lynching: Racial Violence and Memory

Legacies of Lynching: Racial Violence and Memory

by Jonathan Markovitz

Between 1880 and 1930, thousands of African Americans were lynched in the United States. Beyond the horrific violence inflicted on these individuals, lynching terrorized whole communities and became a defining characteristic of Southern race relations in the Jim Crow era. As spectacle, lynching was intended to serve as a symbol of white supremacy. Yet, Jonathan Markovitz notes, the act's symbolic power has endured... (more)

Current Controversies - Hate Crimes (paperback edition) (Current Controversies)

Current Controversies - Hate Crimes (paperback edition) (Current Controversies)

Hate crimes are those perpetrated against a particular individual or group solely because of their race, religion, or sexual orientation. As American society strives to become more tolerant and accepting of diversity, awareness of such crimes has increased--with some arguing that individuals who commit hate-based crimes receive harsher penalties than those who commit similarly violent offenses. Authors explore the... (more)

Jamaica FarewellMorris Cargill

Jamaica Farewell

by Morris Cargill

Strange Fruit: Plays on Lynching by American Women

Strange Fruit: Plays on Lynching by American Women

"These lynching dramas may not present the picture that America wants to see of itself, but these visions cannot be ignored because they are grounded -- not only in the truth of white racism's toxic effect on our national existence but also in the truth that there exists a contesting, collective response that is part of an on-going and continually building momentum." -- Theaatre Journal "A unique, powerful... (more)

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Tags: crime and violence