Book picks similar to
Charles Evans Hughes : in Two Volumes, Volume One by Merlo J. Pusey
biography-and-history
law
less-than-1-000-reviews
pulitzer-biography
And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank
Steve Oney - 2003
The girl’s murder would be the catalyst for an epic saga that to this day holds a singular place in America’s collective imagination—a saga that would climax in 1915 with the lynching of Leo Frank, the Cornell-educated Jew who was convicted of the murder. The case has been the subject of novels, plays, movies and even musicals, but only now, with the publication of And the Dead Shall Rise, do we have an account that does full justice to the mesmerizing and previously unknown details of one of the most shameful moments in the nation’s history.In a narrative reminiscent of a nineteenth-century novel, Steve Oney recounts the emerging revelations of the initial criminal investigation, reconstructs from newspaper dispatches (the original trial transcript mysteriously disappeared long ago) the day-to-day intrigue of the courtroom and illuminates how and why an all-white jury convicted Frank largely on the testimony of a black man. Oney chronicles as well the innumerable avenues that the defense pursued in quest of an appeal, the remarkable and heretofore largely ignored campaign conducted by William Randolph Hearst and New York Times publisher Adolph Ochs to exonerate Frank, the last-minute commutation of Frank’s death sentence and, most indelibly, the flawlessly executed abduction and brutal lynching of Frank two months after his death sentence was commuted.And the Dead Shall Rise brings to life a Dickensian cast of characters caught up in the Frank case—zealous police investigators intent on protecting their department’s reputation, even more zealous private detectives, cynical yet impressionable factory girls, intrepid reporters (including a young Harold Ross), lawyers blinded by their own interests and cowed by the populace’s furor. And we meet four astonishing individuals: Jim Conley, who was Frank’s confessed “accomplice” and the state’s star witness; William Smith, a determined and idealistic lawyer who brilliantly prepared Conley for the defense’s fierce cross-examination and then, a year later, underwent an extraordinary change of heart; Lucille Frank, the martyred wife of the convicted man; and the great populist leader Tom Watson, who manipulated the volatile and lethal outrage of Georgians against the forces of Northern privilege and capital that were seeking to free Frank.And the Dead Shall Rise also casts long-awaited fresh light on Frank’s lynching. No participant was ever indicted, and many went on to prominent careers in state and national politics. Here, for the first time, is the full account of the event—including the identities of the influential Georgians who conceived, carried out and covered up the crime. And here as well is the story of the lynching’s aftermath, which saw both the revival of the Ku Klux Klan and the evolution of the Anti-Defamation League.At once a work of masterful investigative journalism and insightful social history, And the Dead Shall Rise does complete justice to one of history’s most repellent and most fascinating moments.
Amidst the Shadows of Trees: A Holocaust Child’s Survival in the Partisans
Miriam M. Brysk - 2007
They announce that the logical and important places to begin to examine that history are eye witnesses. Miriam Brysk’s chronicle is among the more exceptional of these works. It reflects her own life: highly accomplished, intelligent, detailed and thoughtful. At age seven, Miriam, her mother Bronka and father, Chaim Miasnik, a renowned surgeon, escaped the Lida ghetto and joined Jewish partisans in the Lipiczany Forest. Before the end of the war, Miriam estimates that her father had saved hundreds of lives and helped build and supervise a partisan hospital in the swamps of the forest. Constantly hunted by German soldiers, she experienced childhood terror that has remained with her. She lost her innocence, her childhood, her youth as she clung to her mother and her prized possession, a pistol. Her head was shaved so she would look like a boy. Her memory of the details of that time—both in the Lida ghetto and in the forest—remains remarkably sharp and distinguishes this memoir from many others. — Sidney Bolkosky, William E. Stirton Professor in the Social Sciences, Professor of History, University of Michigan-Dearborn
An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States
Charles A. Beard - 1913
Unlike those writers, who had stressed idealistic impulses as factors determining the structure of the American government, Beard questioned the Founding Fathers' motivations in drafting the Constitution and viewed the results as a product of economic self-interest.Brimming with human interest, insights, and information every student of American history will prize, this volume — one of the most controversial books of its time — continues to prompt new perceptions of the supreme law of the land."A staple for history and economics collections." — Library Journal."Replete with human interest and compact with information of importance to every student of American history or of political science." — Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.
Daniel Webster: The Man and His Time
Robert V. Remini - 1997
In this new biography, Webster is seen as a major player in American politics in the era between the War of 1812 and the beginning of the Civil War, involved with every significant issue confronting the new nation. Webster had no equal as an orator, then or since. Whether in the Senate, before the Supreme Court, or on the political stump, he was a golden-tongued spellbinder, often holding audiences in thrall for hours. In his lifelong defense of the Constitution, and as a constant upholder of the Union, Webster won love and respect. He was often referred to as "the Godlike Daniel". But he was also referred to as "Black Dan" because of his questionable dealings with men of wealth and power, his political conniving, his habitual nonpayment of debts, and perhaps even his somewhat roving eye.
The Red Scream
Mary Willis Walker - 1994
Now on death row, Louie's sentence is about to be carried out. Molly will be there as a witness, and she wants to write about it, the final coda to Louie's story. But suddenly, she's being strongly discouraged by her boss at the Lone Star Monthly and by Charlie McFarland, the millionaire real estate developer whose first wife, Tiny, was Bronk's most famous victim and the only one whose murder is a capital offense. Then Molly starts to receive dark hints that Louie may not have killed Tiny after all. There is another murder following Louis's M.O. one he could not have committed. The veracity of Molly's book is threatened and then her very life. Caught between a rock and a hard place, Molly realizes that by attempting to save Louis she is putting her own life on the line, and discrediting her own work. Mary Willis Walker brings a lusty new voice to the mystery scene. Already recognized for her first novel, she has now created a character just cheeky and gusty enough to take her place among the top ranks of female protagonists such as Kinsey Millhone and Kay Scarpetta.
Of Gods and Men
Stephen Aryan - 2018
An original epic fantasy novella by Stephen Aryan focusing on a fan-favourite character from Battlemage: the gruff and mysterious warrior know as Vargus.
Lawless: A lawyer's unrelenting fight for justice in one of the world's most dangerous places
Kimberley Motley - 2019
She was 32 years old at the time, a former Mrs. Wisconsin (she'd entered the contest on a dare) and a mother of three who had never travelled outside the United States. What she brought to Afghanistan was a toughness and resilience which came from growing up in the projects in one of the most dangerous cities in America, a fundamental belief in everyone's right to justice - whether you live in Milwaukee, New York or Kabul - and a kick-ass approach to practising law that has made her a legend in the archaic, misogynistic and deeply conservative environment of Afghanistan. Through sheer force of personality, ingenuity and perseverance, Kimberley became the first foreign lawyer to practise in the courts of Afghanistan. Her legal work swiftly morphed into a personal mission - to bring "justness" to the defenceless and voiceless.In the space of two years, Kimberley established herself as an expert on Afghanistan's fledgling criminal justice system, steeped in the country's complex laws but equally adept at wielding religious law in the defence of her clients. Her radical approach has seen her successfully represent both Afghans and Westerners, overturning sentences for men and women who have become subject to often appalling miscarriages of justice. Kimberley's story is both the memoir of an extraordinary woman fighting in one of the most dangerous countries in the world, and a page-turning non-fiction legal thriller.
From Immigrant to Inventor
Mihajlo Pupin - 2003
I said to myself: "Michael Pupin, the most valuable asset which you carried into New York harbor nine years ago was your knowledge of, and profound respect and admiration for, the best traditions of your race...the most valuable assets which you are now taking with you from New York harbor is your knowledge of, and profound respect and admiration for, the best traditions of your adopted country." Michael Pupin's was a genuinely American story, the lifelong journey of a boy from rural Serbia, from a town so tiny it appeared on no maps, who became one of the greatest scientists of the early 20th century, changing the lives of people the world over with his technological innovations-he invented the therapeutic X-ray and made telephone communications practical and inexpensive-and helping to invent the modern world we know today. First published in 1922, Pupin's autobiography won the Pulitzer Prize in 1924, but Pupin's insightful and incisive words are their own greatest recommendation. Also available from Cosimo Classics: Pupin's The New Reformation. American physicist and writer MICHAEL IDVORSKY PUPIN (1858-1935) was born in Serbia and emigrated to the United States as a teenager. As a professor and researcher at Columbia University, he invented sonar and made important discoveries in the fields of X-ray physics and telecommunications.
A First-Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt
Geoffrey C. Ward - 1989
Beginning in 1905, with Franklin and Eleanor's honeymoon, it covers FDR's years as New York state senator, assistant secretary of the Navy, his early struggle to overcome the ravages of polio and ends with his election as governor of New York in 1928. Ward not only traces the development of Roosevelt's "first-class temperament" but provides dimensional characterizations of friends, enemies and family members, gallantly defending FDR's often-maligned mother, Sara, and revealing the effect on the Roosevelt children of the tensions between Franklin and Eleanor. FDR's jaunty, fun-loving nature and his "breezy duplicity" are brought into focus in the early sections, but the tone deepens in the moving account of the future president's valiant but hopeless attempt to regain the use of his legs. Going against the accepted legend, Ward maintains that "the Roosevelt who could not walk was in most respects very like the one who could."
Contempt of Court: The Turn-of-the-Century Lynching That Launched a Hundred Years of Federalism
Mark Curriden - 1999
Two black lawyers, not even part of the original defense, appealed to the Supreme Court for a stay of execution, and the stay, incredibly, was granted. Frenzied with rage at the deision, locals responded by lynching Johnson, and what ensued was a breathtaking whirlwind of groundbreaking legal action whose import, Thurgood Marshall would claim, "has never been fully explained." Provocative, thorough, and gripping, Contempt of Court is a long-overdue look at events that clearly depict the peculiar and tenuous relationship between justice and the law.
Circumstantial Evidence: Death, Life, and Justice in a Southern Town
Pete Earley - 1995
This book highlights a case that was front page news--featured on "60 Minutes, " in The New York Times in 1993. HC: Bantam.
Law and Disorder: Confessions of a Pupil Barrister
Tim Kevan - 2010
He has just one year to win, by foul means or fair, the sought-after prize of a tenancy in chambers. Competition is fierce, but, armed with a copy of Sun Tzu's 'The Art of War', BabyBarista launches a no-holds barred fight to the death to claim the prize.
Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain: A Biography
Justin Kaplan - 1966
As Mark Twain, he was the Mississippi riverboat pilot, the satirist with a fiery hatred of pretension, & the author of such classics as Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn. As Mr Clemens, he was the star who married an heiress, built a palatial estate, threw away fortunes on harebrained financial schemes & lived the extravagent life that Twain despised. Set against the richly drawn background of the post-Civil War period that Twain dubbed the "Gilded Age," Mr. Clemens & Mark Twain is sure to entertain & enlighten both general readers & scholars alike.
The Discipline of Law
Alfred Thompson Denning - 1979
They should be moulded and shaped to meet the needs and opinions of today. The Discipline of Law is a fascinating account of Lord Denning's personal contribution to the changing face of the law in this century.
Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolfe
David Herbert Donald - 1987
A man massive in his size, his passions, and his gifts, Wolfe has long been considered something of an unconscious genius, whose undisciplined flow of prose was shaped into novels by his editor, the celebrated Maxwell Perkins.In this definitive and compelling biography, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David Herbert Donald dismantles that myth and demonstrates that Wolfe was a boldly aware experimental artist who, like James Joyce, William Faulkner, and John Dos Passos, deliberately pushed at the boundaries of the modern novel. Donald takes a new measure of this complex, tormented man as he reveals Wolfe's difficult childhood, when he was buffeted between an alcoholic father and a resentful mother; his "magical" years at the University of North Carolina, where his writing talent first flourished; his rise to literary fame after repeated rejection; and the full story of Wolfe's passionate affair with Aline Bernstein, including their intimate letters.