Clarence Darrow for the Defense [Paperback]

Irving Stone (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 1 pages
• Publisher: Signet (December 1, 1971)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451134524
• ISBN-13: 978-0451134523
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,947,230 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Formative Book, December 30, 2009

By 

John R. Vicars "film fan" (Oak Park IL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Clarence Darrow for the Defense (Paperback)

This book was my bible in high school. I appreciate that there are more scholarly, objective - and accurate - treatments of Clarence Darrow's life, but this is the one that got me interested and that still holds a special place. Although written in the 1940s, this life of Darrow was well suited to the climate of the 1960s (when I first read it), when conventional thinking was questioned and liberal ideals were gaining traction. Darrow championed not only evolution in the Scopes Trial, but also the death penalty v. mental illness (Leopold & Loeb), racial integration (the Sweet case in Detroit), and other unpopular causes long before they became the legal norm.

Irving Stone's books are great entry texts to the lives of men and women of great ideals and courage - perhaps a little "adolescent," but that's part of their particular value. I have a Michelangelo-obsessed friend for whom Stone's The Agony and the Ecstacy has the same cultish stature. I'm not sure if there's any writer today providing the same important service, but we could use one.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Readable, Informative look at Great Attorney, February 28, 2010

By 

K.A.Goldberg (Chicago) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Clarence Darrow for the Defense (Paperback)

This is a nicely readable, informative look at the life of attorney Clarence Darrow (1856-1938). Darrow left his well-paying job as attorney for the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad to defend socialist labor leader Eugene Debs in the aftermath of Chicago's 1894 Pullman strike. As readers see, Darrow would then spend the next four decades defending other outcasts and unpopular causes. Darrow would defend labor activists and strikers, millionaire killers Leopold and Loeb, racial integration in Detroit (the Sweet Case), and the teaching of Evolution in Tennessee (Scopes Monkey trial). His opponents would include not only prosecutors, but law makers, ex-Presidential candidates like William Jennings Bryan, and very often enraged public opinion. Readers see how Darrow combined shrewd legal strategy with superb ability to question and cross-examine witnesses. Of course, he was also recognized as among the greatest courtroom orators ever - Chicagoans fought to get courtroom seats for his summation in the Leopold and Loeb case. Darrow would also twice stand trial in Los Angeles, charged with jury tampering from the McNamara case - he was acquitted but left shaken by the experience. All is here in this interesting if slightly dated book written shortly after his passing.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book., June 3, 2007

By 

Rakovsky (USA) - See all my reviews

I thought this author's interesting style was better than the other biographies on Darrow in the library.

When Darrow found that the McNamaras were responsible for destroying bridges: "He felt like a man with a rumbling volcano in his pocket, trying to hold back the eruption with his naked hand." (p. 278)

Does this quote sound odd to anyone else?