Taking Liberties: A Decade of Hard Cases, Bad Laws, and Bum Raps [Paperback]

Alan M. Dershowitz (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this collection of essays drawn from his weekly syndicated columns, Harvard Law School professor Dershowitz (The Best Defense, etc.), reviews the present state of the judicial system from Supreme Court to the local police station and discusses how major legal developments of the last decade affect our daily lives. Cases cited concern issues ranging from the ideology of Justice Department figures, including Bork and Meese, to the legitimacy of compulsory seat belts. Dershowitz decries what he considers to be a double standard of justice for nonwhites; he takes lawyers to task for over-charging poor clients for routine services and criticizes law firms for practicingand bar associations for condoningprofessional discrimination. Medical advances and changes in public and private morality, he notes, have created new legal problems, for example, abortion, rights of terminally ill patients and AIDS victims along with altered family relationships and numerous cases involving the First Amendment. He concludes with the observation that the last decade has been marked by a shift away from the protection of individual rights.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 332 pages
• Publisher: Contemporary Books (March 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0809243784
• ISBN-13: 978-0809243785
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,043,776 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

ALAN M. DERSHOWITZ is a Brooklyn native who has been called 'the nation's most peripatetic civil liberties lawyer' and one of its 'most distinguished defenders of individual rights,' 'the best-known criminal lawyer in the world,' 'the top lawyer of last resort,' and 'America's most public Jewish defender.' He is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Dershowitz, a graduate of Brooklyn College and Yale Law School, joined the Harvard Law School faculty at age 25 after clerking for Judge David Bazelon and Justice Arthur Goldberg. While he is known for defending clients such as Anatoly Sharansky, Claus von B'low, O.J. Simpson, Michael Milken and Mike Tyson, he continues to represent numerous indigent defendants and takes half of his cases pro bono. Dershowitz is the author of 20 works of fiction and non-fiction, including 6 bestsellers. His writing has been praised by Truman Capote, Saul Bellow, David Mamet, William Styron, Aharon Appelfeld, A.B. Yehoshua and Elie Wiesel. More than a million of his books have been sold worldwide, in numerous languages, and more than a million people have heard him lecture around the world. His most recent nonfiction titles are The Case For Peace: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Can be Resolved (August 2005, Wiley); Rights From Wrongs: A Secular Theory of the Origins of Rights (November 2004, Basic Books), The Case for Israel (September 2003, Wiley), America Declares Independence, Why Terrorism Works, Shouting Fire, Letters to a Young Lawyer, Supreme Injustice, and The Genesis of Justice. His novels include The Advocate's Devil and Just Revenge. Dershowitz is also the author of The Vanishing American Jew, The Abuse Excuse, Reasonable Doubts, Chutzpah (a #1 bestseller), Reversal of Fortune (which was made into an Academy Award-winning film), Sexual McCarthyism and The Best Defense.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, but ultimately a little shallow, June 25, 2000

By 

Jeremy Dorin (Arlington, VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Taking Liberties: A Decade of Hard Cases, Bad Laws, and Bum Raps (Paperback)

This book is a compilation of articles by Dershowitz on legal and consitutional issues ranging from the exclusionary rule to the death penalty. The articles are indeed interesting and the opinion is sound. I have found Dershowitz to be a great author with his other works and his personal history is fascinating.

If there is a fault to this book, it is that the author tries to do too much. There are so many topics and articles that it is hard for Dershowitz to really explore any one issue or the intricate interconnections between facets of legal history.

If you find yourself with nothing to do on a Saturday afternoon, this book is worth a look. It is, indeed, a fun light read; just do not expect hard-core legal analyses.