This exhaustive study of the criminal justice/prison system in America proves beyond doubt that the criminal justice sytem is biased against minorities, political dissidents, and (always) the poor.

From colonial times to the present, horrors have been committd in the name of justice. What is so disturbing is that today, 500 years later, many of the exact same abuses continue. Women are raped. Men are beaten, and almost no one is rehabilitated.

Why is it that prisons are the only industry where one can fail over and over, and the only consequence is that we build more and more of the exact same thing?

As a private investigator this book has enabled me to better understand the roots of the current criminal justice system, the many shortcomings of the system, and the harsh realities faced by generations of prisoners in this country. I highly recommend it. I have shared this book with several attorneys and two California state life prisoners (victims of the three strikes law). There is something in it for everyone. If Ken Burns is out there, he may want to make this the subject of his next documentary series!

I am distressed by Americans who ask "how could the German citizens have tolerated the Nazi horrors" but who keep voting for tougher and tougher treatment of prisoners. This well written and well researched book describes the history of prisons (and you will be surprised by some of the earlier ideas about the purpose and functioning of prisons) for the past 500 years. I wish it would be required reading in all schools.

Over all, this is a good book. It's narrative is written very well, with a slight but no over bearing of cynical humor to it.
Basically, it's about this free black boy during the Revolutionary war. His close friend, who is a slave is nearly beaten to death by his master. Fortunately, our hero saves his friend. Unfortunately, in the process they make themselves wanted men. They run off to join the British army, being as our hero's friend believes this is his only way to freedom. I won't spoil it for you but this book had me near tears a few times. Typical of Massie's Young Founders series, it is pretty opinionated and I found myself agitated by her constant almost black and white picture of the revolution. But if that doesn't bug you that much. As a matter of fact, I highly recommend this book, esp. if you have a book report to do for History class

This book takes a look at the years prior to the American Revolution and then into the war from an original and not often used point of view...that of a teenaged free black who lives an isolated life on a Quaker farm in Maryland. He hears about the struggles and the disagreements between the colonies and England but it really doesn't affect him much. Until he is banished from the farm for kissing the daughter of the farm owner, helps a slave friend escape from a neighboring farm, then goes south to join up with Lord Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment. This regiment was made of ex-slaves and free blacks who wanted to fight on the side of the British. I disagree somewhat with the previous reviewer who says Massie offers facts through a black and white lens. I found the book very balanced...should a free black fight for the British? Should he fight for the Colonies? Does he have a stake in fighting at all? The story was not interjected with author feelings but rang true as coming from the turmoil in Caleb's own mind. An excellent book for classrooms while teaching the Revolution as it addresses a little discussed population at the time. It has lots of accurate details of the time period. Also an excellent book for teenagers or adults looking for an adventurous tale set in historical America.

This is a nice collection of essays from one of the country's leading political philosphers of a conservative bent. The essays date back from many years ago, but they are still timely to those interested in the subject matter. Particularly well done and interesting are Jaffa's writings on natural law, a theme that has been at the center of the author's work throughout his career, and civil liberty. This book is well worth the investment.

The author, Professor Harry Jaffa, may be best known as a scholar of Abraham Lincoln (Jaffa's Crisis of the House Divided, written in 1959, is a classic) and indeed the central chapters are on Lincoln and the Civil War. A political philospher rather than a historian, Jaffa's almost unique contribution is a profound and probing appreciation for Lincoln as a both skilled politician and profound thinker. Jaffa emphasizes Lincoln's debt to--and vindication of--the American Founding as expressed particularly in the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration, for Lincoln as for Jaffa, is the touchstone of American greatness--the "apple of gold" of which the Constitution is "the frame of silver." As the title indicates, and contrary to much contemporary opinion, Jaffa defends the centrality of equality (of opportunity) as essential to liberty. Properly understood, Jaffa argues, each re-enforces and supplies the ground for the other. Several other essays in the book expand on Jaffa's subtle, wide-ranging and always compelling defense of the American political tradition. The index and new introduction for this edition are helpful additions.

Excerpted from The Independent Review (Summer 2001) by James R. Otteson
J. C. Lester's Escape from Leviathan is a bracing book.
The chief asset of the book is its dogged and persistent attack on the detractors of the private-property anarchy the author advocates. But this asset is simultaneously a liability: Lester does not argue for his position; rather, he argues that the most likely objections to it fail. This tactic gives the book a somewhat unpleasantly defensive tone, and, more significantly, it limits the ultimate persuasiveness of the book's central thesis.
In the end, the principal value of Lester's book is as something like a catalog of arguments defending libertarian or anarchistic political thought against various detractors and their objections. Not all of the defenses work, and in a few cases Lester's dismissals are too hasty; nevertheless, he offers many interesting and novel insights. I remain disappointed that he did not undertake to defend his own thesis directly, and I hope that in the future he will relax his commitment to Popperian epistemology and undertake such a defense. In the meantime, however, refutation of objections is a valuable service in its own right, and Lester accomplishes that task well.

This book probably represents a landmark in the literature of liberalism on two counts. One of these is the robust statement of his major thesis on the compatibility of free markets, liberty and welfare. The other is the way he uses the non-authoritarian theory of rationality expounded by Karl Popper and William W Bartley.

"In practice (rather than in imaginary cases) and in the long term, there are no systematic clashes among interpersonal liberty, general welfare, and market anarchy, where these terms are to be understood roughly as follows...". Those who seek linguistic precision may be alarmed that his terms are to be understood roughly. Lester has quite deliberately avoided the kind of conceptual analysis, the teasing out of the meaning of terms, that Popper has labeled "essentialism". At least one reviewer noted the remarkable amount of meat that is packed into the book. This is partly due to the self-conscious avoidance of essentialism, partly to Lester's firm grasp on his materials and party to the mode of argumentation that he has adopted, following the non-justificationist or non-foundational line that has been articulated by Popper and Bartley.

The main characteristic of this approach is that it only attempts to achieve what is possible, which is the formation of a critical preference for one option rather than another, in the light of the evidence and arguments that are available up to date. He does not attempt the impossible, namely a logically conclusive proof of his case. What is possible is to propose a theory or a doctrine and subject it to criticism, then if it stands up we may proceed with that theory or doctrine until such time as an alternative is proposed that has better credentials and stands up to criticism at least as well as the previous candidate.

Turning to the organization of the book, after the Introduction are four chapters; Rationality, Liberty, Welfare and Anarchy. Each chapter is tightly organised and packed with crisply presented arguments which resist efforts to paraphrase them. Consequently no short review will do justice to the contents of the book or its organisation. Lester's theory of rationality has to reconcile two extreme views in economics - the neglected subjective, "a priori" approach of Menger and the Austrians, and the standard objective, empirical account. He adopts the theory that agents are self-interested utility-maximisers and he addresses a number of standard objections that are raised against this concept. He argues, successfully in my view, that the objections do no damage to his thesis.

Liberty is formulated as the absence of initiated or proactively imposed cost, or in the case of a mutual clash of imposed costs, the minimisation of imposed costs. This means avoiding or minimising the subjective costs imposed on us by other people, without our consent. Lester explains this formulation, compares it with typical libertarian alternatives to illustrate its strengths and then tests it by attempting to solve some problems presented to libertarians by David Friedman and John Gray. This is the longest chapter and it covers a huge amount of ground, including intellectual property rights and a theory of restitution for crimes and torts. In addition to the criticism of Friedman and Gray there is also a rejoinder to Amartya Sen and to Karl Popper.

The criticism of John Gray is important because for some time he enjoyed a high profile as a rare instance of a classical liberal Oxford don. Lester also responds to Gray's charge of "restrictivism", directed at liberals on the ground that they do not accept that freedom is "an essentially contested concept". In response, Lester accuses Gray of "conflationism", that is, importing a raft of contentious theories from elsewhere (psychology, hermeneutics, epistemology) to muddle and confuse the issues, at the same time appealing to various authorities and ultimately overriding interpersonal liberty in favour of some other goal.

Welfare is a sticking point for many people of good will who support freedom but believe that they cannot be libertarians because of all the poor people who need assistance. Actually support for deserving poor people could be provided by a VWA (Voluntary Welfare Association), dispensing funds from voluntary donations from all the people who currently vote to support welfare policies. The main targets in the chapter on welfare are R M Hare, Amartya Sen, Bernard Williams, John Rawls, John Harsanyi and Alan Ryan.

The final chapter on anarchy is very short because most of the work to defend private property and the market order has been done in previous chapters. "Basic conceptual confusion and mere prejudice are more the real problems" (page 193). He casts a critical eye over some conceptual aspects of the state and then he turns to John Rawls again as an exemplar of confusion and prejudice. Finally, Lester identifies the way that Rawls has simply ignored the libertarian position on the state, which is perceived as providing the arena where the most divisive issues can be removed from the political agenda.

Neely gives an excellent and detailed review of how civil liberties suffered during the War Between the States. The right of habeas corpus is Neely's main concern, but trials by military commissons and international law are covered among other topics.

If you're not a Civil War buff, this book may seem pretty dry. For example, a lot of space is devoted to evaluating the various claims of how many military prisoners there were. While this is important historical data, it made my eyes glaze over and prompted me to skim several sections of the book.

Given the post-9/11 discussions of military tribunals and other curtailments of the Bill of Rights, this book is more relevant than ever.

This book gives an excellent look into the policies of the Lincoln administration and the effects of these policies on civil liberties in the United States. A common misconception regarding this subject is that the majority of those arrested as a result of the suspension of habeas corpus were political enemies of Lincoln. This book, however, demonstrates how many of the arrests were not based upon politics, but upon how the crimes committed affected the war effort. Most attention in the past has focused on a few famous cases such as Clement Vallandingham, but this book shows that this case was an exception to the rule.

A must-read for anyone interested in the Civil War or Abraham Lincoln. Neely also writes in a clear prose that clearly explains his points and allows the reader to understand what he is talking about even without having an extensive knowledge of Lincoln or the Civil War.

For those reading this who may be unfamiliar with Mr. Knight, let me just say that he was responsible for creating the reputation of the "Chicago school" of economics, later popularized by Milton Friedman.

For those who might be prejudiced against the perceived conservative bent of the Chicago school of thought, I will hasten to say that these essays offer very little comfort for the defenders of consevatism. Indeed they offer little comfort to the holder of seemingly any position. The great strengths of his thought were in his great perception of the popular lines of political/economic thought of the 20th century, and his unapologetic criticism of all of these ideas.

This however, to me, is also the weakness of his thought. He seems to want to stand outside the fray, having no position of his own. This doesn't really get in the way of enjoying his essays though. I do have to admit that many of my thoughts about political ideas have been seriously challenged by this work and think that he brings a valuable contribution the debate about the future of American politics, even some 60 years after origianal publication

This is not a book for those looking for arguments to defend this or that ideological position. Frank Knight was far too critical and independent minded to ever be a defender of ideology. He had no interest in being a mere propagandist for free market economics or the mantras of classical liberalism. Although Knight regarded himself as an old-fashioned, nineteenth century liberal, he was well aware of the faults of classical liberalism, and he wrote about them with a candor and honesty sure to annoy the true believers of that creed. In fact, several of the essays in "Freedom and Reform" are critiques of what used to be staples of liberal belief: freedom, free markets, individualism, etc. Knight argues that, however important these ideas may be in the context of a free and democratic society, we would be lying to ourselves if we did not acknowledge their flaws. Individualism, Knight points out, is based on the "fundamental error" of taking the individual as given. What exists in society is not so much "individualism," but, more to the point, of what Knight calls "familism." "Some sort of family life, and far beyond that, some kind of wider primary-group and culture-group life, of a considerable degree of stability, must be taken as they are, as data," he insists. There is an important point here that has not been understood by liberal rationalists. Human beings are in fact social creatures, and if they are deprived of the social bonds of the family, they will search for a substitute elsewhere. Is this not one of the major causes behind multiculturalism and the group-fanaticism of the Left? Rootless individuals, deprived of familial bonds, look to race or gender or sexual orientation to provide what the family no longer can.

Knight's basic approach is to supplement the rationalistic analysis typical of social science (especially economics) with a strong dose of common sense. Anyone with even a moderate sense of social reality knows that human beings are not the rational calculators or profit maximizers envisioned by economists. "It has become clear that people individually, and much more so in collectivities, are not very rational," Knight points out. "Man typically describes himself as an intelligent animal-Homo sapiens; but the main significance of this seems to be that man loves to compliment himself and considers this the highest compliment. 'Intelligence' is a word of numerous meanings, and with respect to all of them man is both a stupid animal and a romantic, preferring emotion to reason and fiction to truth." By keeping the limitations of human nature in mind at all times, Knight is able to see through the cant of the social sciences. He is perceptive not only in regards to libertarians and classical liberals, but even more so to radicals and left-liberals. His review essay on Dewey's "Liberalism and Social Action" is devastating. And his analysis of Marxism in the essay "Ethics and Economic Reform" is one of the best ever. The essential hypocrisy and nihilism of the Marxist creed has rarely been stated with such force and clarity. "For in plain factual appraisal, what [Marxians] are doing is more catastrophically evil than treason, or poisoning the wells, or other acts commonly placed at the head of the list of crimes," Knight declared. "The moralisation of destruction, and of combat with a view to destruction, goes with the kind of hero-worship that merges into devil worship. Such phenomena show that human nature has potentialities that are horrible." Knight wrote this in 1939, long before the atrocities of Stalin were well understood in the West. It is to be regretted that, even to this day, there are professors in American universities incapable of understanding the points Knight makes concerning the Marxist creed.

As a person who grew up in Tampa, and is very aware of Ybor City, I think this book is great. Mormino and Pozzetta outdid themselves on this book. There is so much detail in this book, it feels like you are walking the old brick streets in Ybor. Hopefullly more teachers will have their class read this as it pertains to a great piece of America's history.

In the past, I have had the great opportunity to have Gary Mormino as my history teacher at the University of South Florida. He was, to say the least, a grand teacher. His skill exhibited in the class, to say the least, come alive in this book. This is a great book and a great read - find it and read it.

Tess becomes a "service provider" at a posh fantasy oriented "hotel" operated by a well know madam in order to solve her financial woes. From the time she writes her resume, she enters a world of new and pleasurable experience, punctuated with a dose of fear. She finds out she enjoys more than she thought she would in a risqué coming of age. This book was great fun and highly erotic, I would highly recommend this one!

Better than average story for the Black Lace series. Tess has a great variety of experiences.

This book takes a guess on the story of one of the most loved scoundrels ever to roam the seven seas of litterature. The research done in the process of the creation of this piece is quite well done. The book is exiting with all the strange and fascinating tales and stories the pirate experiences through his great and long carier. Long John is shown as the fully complex and complete character is person deserves. Indeed a deserving piece by a capable arthor.

This book is a pleasure to read! Larsson has beautifully captured the world of the pirate, and placed it clearly in the society of the time. Long John Silver lives from adventure to adventure -- sailor, slave-ship crewmember, slave, pub-owner, fugitive, lover, smuggler, and wealthy, retired (but still-sought-after-by-authorities) gentleman of fortune. Throughout it all, he follows his own moral compass and does the right thing.

A tale out of another century, vividly captured and well-told.

The author presents a very interesting and readable history of the major changes and the cases involved in the interpretations of the first amendment to the constitution. He shows how these changes have negatively impacted our society allowing us too much freedom without any real responsibility, leading to the degradation of society and what he sees as the eventual downfall of our government - perhaps even into dictatorship. He gives two appendices to help the reader (especially the novice to law) understand the cases. The most important part of the book is the first section and the conclusion, though the other parts are also important. The only drawback I see is that the author did not mention the presidents who appointed the justices to the Supreme Court who were involved in the changes in interpretation of the first amendment. It would have added interest and weight to the book to know the presidential involvement in the choices made for justices and the influence each president had over his justice choice, if any. Also, the recommendations for change and his call to action appear to be weak in outline and ability to actually be accomplished. Finally, anyone (perhaps students) without a thorough command of the English language better read the book with a dictionary in hand!!

The author beautifully demonstrates the intepretation of the US Constitution in modern times is contrary to that of its original intent. Well written and accessible to those without legal background, though extensively referenced.

He further shows that the original intent is superior politically, logically and morally to what has replaced it. That the current interpretation that has replaced it, due to its internal contradictions, must disrupt in time, taking any government based on it down with it.

The most fascinating point of the book, perhaps, is where the author shows the exact point in 1919 where the Supreme Court first lost touch with Constitution. Then again, in 1925, when it solidified that in a ruling written by Holmes and Brandeis:

"If in the long run the beliefs expressed in proletarian dictatorship are destined to be accepted by the dominant forces of the community, the only meaning of freedom speech is that they should be given their chance and have their way."

It was with this statement that US Constitution, as designed by the founding fathers, being based on centuries of experience and articulated in part by John Locke, was instead replaced by one based on John Stuart Mills and Charles Darwin.

Instead of the original intent of allowing citizens to protect themselves from those who seek to strip them of their inalienable rights (liberty as "We the People"), the courts adopted a position that supresses that, stating that our original constitutional democracy is only a "fighting faith" and cannot be held as deserving protection from other "fighting faiths", even if the people loath them and believe them destructive to representative government.

These poisonous seeds are buried in history but have been blooming throughout the century, as judges draw on precedence and their own personal cultural background as isolated legal elites.

The people who designed the US government and those who lived in it for the first 140 years would find the present situation a bizarre distortion almost beyond belief and rationality. Certainly not sustainable and actually the opposite of what was intended, achieving and surpassing the very European decadence they designed to prevent.

Here in LA, I've been vexed to go to the US Post Office and see the parking lots stuffed with pornographic literature blowing all over the place while children praying in school is criminalized. A demented society indeed. This book traces the legal development of the insanity.