Legal History

The Nuremberg Trial

Here is a gripping account of the major postwar trial of the Nazi hierarchy in World War II. The Nuremberg Trial brilliantly recreates the trial proceedings and offers a reasoned, often profound examination of the processes that created international law. From the whimpering of Kaltenbrunner and Ribbentrop on the stand to the icy coolness of Goering, each participant …

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A People’s History of the Supreme Court: The Men and Women Whose Cases and Decisions Have Shaped OurConstitution: Revised Edition

Recent changes in the Supreme Court have placed the venerable institution at the forefront of current affairs, making this comprehensive and engaging work as timely as ever. In the tradition of Howard Zinn’s classic A People’s History of the United States, Peter Irons chronicles the decisions that have influenced virtually every aspect of our society, from the debates …

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Magna Carta (Penguin Classics)

For its 800th anniversary, a new edition of one of democracy’s founding legal documents, with extensive new commentaryWrested by rebellious barons from a very reluctant King John, Magna Carta set out a series of rights and duties that have been appealed to, ignored, suppressed, and argued about ever since. Here, David Carpenter’s forceful new translation is accompanied by extensive commentary …

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The Buffalo Creek Disaster: How the Survivors of One of the Worst Disasters in Coal-Mining History Brought Suit Against the Coal Company- And Won

One Saturday morning in February 1972, an impoundment dam owned by the Pittston Coal Company burst, sending a 130 million gallon, 25 foot tidal wave of water, sludge, and debris crashing into southern West Virginia’s Buffalo Creek hollow. It was one of the deadliest floods in U.S. history. 125 people were killed instantly, more than 1,000 were injured, …

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Making Money: Coin, Currency, and the Coming of Capitalism

Money travels the modern world in disguise. It looks like a convention of human exchange – a commodity like gold or a medium like language. But its history reveals that money is a very different matter. It is an institution engineered by political communities to mark and mobilize resources. As societies change the way they create money, they …

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Lincoln’s Greatest Case: The River, the Bridge, and the Making of America

The untold story of how one sensational trial propelled a self-taught lawyer and a future president into the national spotlight.In the early hours of May 6, 1856, the steamboat Effie Afton barreled into a pillar of the Rock Island Bridge―the first railroad bridge ever to span the Mississippi River. Soon after, the newly constructed vessel, crowded with passengers …

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Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America

A provocative history that reveals how guns―not abortion, race, or religion―are at the heart of America’s cultural divide.Gunfight is a timely work examining America’s four-centuries-long political battle over gun control and the right to bear arms. In this definitive and provocative history, Adam Winkler reveals how guns―not abortion, race, or religion―are at the heart of America’s cultural divide. …

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Magna Carta: The Making and Legacy of the Great Charter

From the New York Times–bestselling author of The Plantagenets comes a beautifully produced account of the signing, impact, and legacy of a document that became one of the most influential statements in the history of democracy On a summer’s day in 1215 a beleaguered English monarch met a group of disgruntled barons in a meadow by the river …

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