Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

A Civil Action (Vintage Books) (Vintage)

A Civil Action (Vintage Books) (Vintage)

by Jonathan Harr

"The legal thriller of the decade." --Cleveland Plain Dealer Now a Major Motion Picture! In this true story of an epic courtroom showdown, two of the nation's largest corporations stand accused of causing the deaths of children. Representing the bereaved parents, the unlikeliest of heroes emerges: a young, flamboyant Porsche-driving lawyer who hopes to win millions of dollars and ends up nearly losing... (more)

One L: The Turbulent True Story of a First Year at Harvard Law School

One L: The Turbulent True Story of a First Year at Harvard Law School

by Scott Turow

Memoirs adapted from the author's diary chronicle his emotionally and intellectually challenging first year in law school and records the fierce and sometimes hysterical competition that is faced by Harvard Law School students. Reprint. Tour. NYT. "

America's Constitution: A Biography

by Akhil Reed Amar

In America’s Constitution , one of this era’s most accomplished constitutional law scholars, Akhil Reed Amar, gives the first comprehensive account of one of the world’s great political texts. Incisive, entertaining, and occasionally controversial, this “biography” of America’s framing document explains not only what the Constitution says but also why the Constitution says it. We all know this much: the... (more)

Gideon's Trumpet (Vintage)

by Anthony Lewis

A history of the landmark case of James Earl Gideon's fight for the right to legal counsel. Notes, table of cases, index. The classic backlist bestseller. More than 800,000 sold since its first pub date of 1964.

The Widow's War: A Novel

by Sally Gunning

Married for twenty years to Edward Berry, Lyddie is used to the trials of being a whaler's wife in the Cape Cod village of Satucket, Massachusetts—running their house herself during her husband's long absences at sea, living with the daily uncertainty that Edward will simply not return. And when her worst fear is realized, she finds herself doubly cursed. She is overwhelmed by grief, and her property and rights... (more)

Original Meanings

Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution

by Jack N. Rakove

From abortion to same-sex marriage, today's most urgent political debates will hinge on this two-part question: What did the United States Constitution originally mean and who now understands its meaning best? Rakove chronicles the Constitution from inception to ratification and, in doing so, traces its complex weave of ideology and interest, showing how this document has meant different things at different times... (more)

Jim Crow's Children: The Broken Promise of the Brown Decision

Jim Crow's Children: The Broken Promise of the Brown Decision

by Peter H. Irons

In 1954 the U.S. Supreme Court sounded the death knell for school segregation with its decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka . So goes the conventional wisdom. Weaving together vivid portraits of lawyers and such judges as Thurgood Marshall and Earl Warren, sketches of numerous black children throughout history whose parents joined lawsuits against Jim Crow schools, and gripping courtroom drama... (more)

The Constitutional And Legal Rights of Women: Cases in Law And Social Change

The Constitutional And Legal Rights of Women: Cases in Law And Social Change

by Judith A. Baer

"The Constitutional and Legal Rights of Women: Cases in Law and Social Change" is designed to provide undergraduate students with a comprehensive, sophisticated treatment of the legal status of all American women. Authors Baer and Goldstein skillfully blend doctrinal and political developments to document and explain the evolution of women's rights and the law - as well as the dynamics and dissension within the... (more)

A People's History of the Supreme Court: The Men and Women Whose Cases and Decisions Have Shaped Our ConstitutionRevised Edition

A People's History of the Supreme Court: The Men and Women Whose Cases and Decisions Have Shaped Our ConstitutionRevised Edition

by Peter H. Irons

Beginning with the debates over judicial power in the Constitutional Convention of 1787 to controversial rulings on slavery, racial segregation, free speech, school prayer, abortion, and gay rights, constitutional scholar Peter Irons offers a penetrating look at the highest court in the land. Here are revealing sketches of every justice from John Jay to Stephen Breyer, as well as portraits of such legal giants as... (more)

The Bill of Rights: Creation and Reconstruction

The Bill of Rights: Creation and Reconstruction

by Akhil Reed Amar

A leading scholar of constitutional law delivers an incisive and brilliant new account of the Bill of Rights and explodes conventional wisdom about our most basic charter of liberty. Akhil Reed Amar not only illuminates the text, structure, and history of the 1789 Bill but also argues that its present character owes more to antislavery activists of the Reconstruction era than to the Founding Fathers who created... (more)

Chicago Death Trap: The Iroquois Theatre Fire of 1903

Chicago Death Trap: The Iroquois Theatre Fire of 1903

by Nat Brandt

On the afternoon of December 30, 1903, during a sold-out matinee performance, a fire broke out in Chicago’s Iroquois Theatre. In the short span of twenty minutes, more than six hundred people, two thirds of whom were women and children, were asphyxiated, burned, or trampled to death in a panicked mob’s failed attempt to escape. A century after the fire—the deadliest in American history—Nat Brandt provides the only... (more)

Prostitution and Victorian Society: Woman, Class and the State

Prostitution and Victorian Society: Woman, Class and the State

by Judith R. Walkowitz

The state regulation of prostitution, as established under the Contagious Diseases Acts of 1864, 1866 and 1869, and the successful campaign for the repeal of the Acts, provide the framework for this study of alliances between prostitutes and feminists and their clashes with medical authorities and police. Prostitution and Victorian Society makes a major contribution to women's history, working-class history, and... (more)

Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and Its Troubled Legacy (Pivotal Moments in American History)

Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and Its Troubled Legacy (Pivotal Moments in American History)

by James T. Patterson

2004 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Supreme Court's unanimous decision to end segregation in public schools. Many people were elated when Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren delivered Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in May 1954, the ruling that struck down state-sponsored racial segregation in America's public schools. Thurgood Marshall, chief attorney for the black families that launched the... (more)

May it Please the Court: The First Amendment: Transcripts of the Oral Arguments Made Before the Supreme Court in Sixteen Key First Amendment Cases

May it Please the Court: The First Amendment: Transcripts of the Oral Arguments Made Before the Supreme Court in Sixteen Key First Amendment Cases

This unique insider's look at the Supreme Court in session includes live recordings and transcripts of actual landmark cases, including Miranda v. Arizona (the right to remain silent), Roe v. Wade (abortion rights), Bowers v. Hardwick (gay rights), Regents v. Bakke (reverse discrimination), Loving v. Virginia (interracial marriage), United States v. Richard Nixon (Watergate), and many others. Previously only... (more)

The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States

The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States

by Alexander Keyssar

An esteemed historian offers a compelling re-thinking of the path America has taken toward its goal of universal suffrage Most Americans take for granted their right to vote, whether they choose to exercise it or not. But the history of suffrage in the U.S. is, in fact,the story of a struggle to achieve this right by our society's marginalized groups. In The Right to Vote, Duke historian Alexander Keyssar... (more)

The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court

The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court

by Jeffrey Toobin

Bestselling author Jeffrey Toobin takes you into the chambers of the most importantand secretlegal body in our country, the Supreme Court, and reveals the complex dynamic among the nine people who decide the law of the land.Just in time for the 2008 presidential electionwhere the future of the Court will be at stakeToobin reveals an institution at a moment of transition, when decades of conservative... (more)

May it Please the Court: The First Amendment: Transcripts of the Oral Arguments Made Before the Supreme Court in Sixteen Key First Amendment Cases

by Peter Irons

This sequel to the best-selling May It Please the Court focuses on key First Amendment cases illustrating the most controversial debates over issues of free speech, freedom of the press, and the right to assemble, including: Barnes v. Glen Theater (nude dancing), New York Times v. United States (the "Pentagon Papers" case), Texas v. Johnson (American flag burning), Brandenburg v. Ohio (hate speech by Klansmen) and... (more)

A March of Liberty: A Constitutional History of United States Since 1865Melvin I. Urofsky

A March of Liberty: A Constitutional History of United States Since 1865

by Melvin I. Urofsky

Equal Justice Under Law (New American Nation Series)Harold M. Hyman

Equal Justice Under Law (New American Nation Series)

by Harold M. Hyman

Evil AngelsJohn Bryson

Evil Angels

by John Bryson

BRAND NEW leather bound book accented with gilt! ! Convicted for murdering her own infant daugther and sentanced to life, Lindy Chameberlain would be released after three years and cleared of all charges in another three not because any questioned her innocence, but rather her guilt. EVIL ANGELS is John Bryson's account of how, after returning from a camping trip without their daughter, Australians Michael and... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: legal history

by Jonathan Harr

by Scott Turow

by Akhil Reed Amar

by Anthony Lewis

by Sally Gunning

Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution

by Jack N. Rakove

by Peter H. Irons

by Judith A. Baer

by Peter H. Irons

by Akhil Reed Amar

by Nat Brandt

by Judith R. Walkowitz

by James T. Patterson

by Alexander Keyssar

by Jeffrey Toobin

by Peter Irons

by Melvin I. Urofsky

by Harold M. Hyman

by John Bryson