Taming of Free Speech

America’s Civil Liberties Compromise

Inbunden, Engelska, 2016

470 kr

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Beskrivning

In the early decades of the twentieth century, business leaders condemned civil liberties as masks for subversive activity, while labor sympathizers denounced the courts as shills for industrial interests. But by the Second World War, prominent figures in both camps celebrated the judiciary for protecting freedom of speech. In this strikingly original history, Laura Weinrib illustrates how a surprising coalition of lawyers and activists made judicial enforcement of the Bill of Rights a defining feature of American democracy.The Taming of Free Speech traces our understanding of civil liberties to conflict between 1910 and 1940 over workers’ right to strike. As self-proclaimed partisans in the class war, the founders of the American Civil Liberties Union promoted a bold vision of free speech that encompassed unrestricted picketing and boycotts. Over time, however, they subdued their rhetoric to attract adherents and prevail in court. At the height of the New Deal, many liberals opposed the ACLU’s litigation strategy, fearing it would legitimize a judiciary they deemed too friendly to corporations and too hostile to the administrative state. Conversely, conservatives eager to insulate industry from government regulation pivoted to embrace civil liberties, despite their radical roots. The resulting transformation in constitutional jurisprudence—often understood as a triumph for the Left—was in fact a calculated bargain.America’s civil liberties compromise saved the courts from New Deal attack and secured free speech for labor radicals and businesses alike. Ever since, competing groups have clashed in the arena of ideas, shielded by the First Amendment.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:2016-10-10
Mått:156 x 235 x 41 mm
Vikt:958 g
Format:Inbunden
Språk:Engelska
Antal sidor:480
Förlag:Harvard University Press
ISBN:9780674545717
Utmärkelser:Nominated for James Willard Hurst Prize 2017

Utforska kategorier

Mänskliga och medborgerliga rättigheter inom Juridik
Rättshistoria inom Juridik
Politiskt förtryck inom Samhälle och politik

Mer om författaren

Laura Weinrib is Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and Suzanne Young Murray Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

Recensioner i media

Utterly brilliant…Balanced and restrained in her writing but original and subversive in her argument, Weinrib stops short of offering morals from this history…Most important, Weinrib reanimates a strange time when the forces of business and the forces of labor were engaged in a pitched battle about the way Americans should construct their economy. When you go looking for the origins of civil libertarianism, it turns out, you find a class struggle…Weinrib’s book is an extraordinary reminder of why history matters to the present.