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Narrated by Chloe Cannon
Ian RosenbergUnabridged — 7 hours, 19 minutes
Narrated by Chloe Cannon
Ian RosenbergUnabridged — 7 hours, 19 minutes
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"Ian Rosenberg’s riveting portrayal of ten of the Supreme Court’s leading free speech cases is a page-turner! The Fight for Free Speech tells the gripping, behind-the-scenes stories of those whose visions and passion paved the way for their causes to be heard before our country’s High Court."
"Using recent controversies about free expression as his starting point, Ian Rosenberg introduces general readers to classic problems that have defined the constitutional contours of freedom of expression. You don’t need a legal background to learn a great deal from The Fight for Free Speech."
"This book should be required reading for all engaged citizens. My colleague Ian Rosenberg puts vital information about the law in crisp, comprehensible language. You get a tour through history and a primer on your rights in this eminently useful and readable book."
"With verve and aplomb,The Fight for Free Speech reveals actual free speech conflicts on the ground along with the basic First Amendment law they engendered. It is a gift for citizenship."
"The Fight for Free speech is a must read for anyone, of any age, to understand the stakes for the amendment America’s founders chose to put first, because without it representative democracy dies aborning. The magic of this book is that it is written with the clarity, concision and dynamism vital to make its lessons stick. It is simply a great read, and a powerful one."
"The Fight for Free Speech is a wonderful guide to our free speech rights, serving as an engaging introduction for all readers, and as an illuminating source of insights even for those with expertise in First Amendment law."
"Anyone who reads this book will come away with a solid understanding of the dilemmas of free speech law. Readers with no legal training will gain a huge and valuable insight into the complexities of free speech law. This book ought to be required reading for all political leaders..."
"The Fight for Free Speech is an accessible but learned survey of the concepts upon which the Constitutional right to free speech rests. Its 10 chapters weave fascinating narratives about the people who stood up for free speech and the Supreme Court Justices who have struggled to understand how and where to delineate the lines that separate this precious freedom from behavior and language that can be prohibited. Rosenberg explores and contextualizes the signature tropes of free speech discourse including the market place of ideas, shouting fire in a crowded theater, rights that don’t stop at the schoolhouse door, prior restraint, the right to parody and hate speech in order to make our ongoing discourse more careful and accurate. The book is a perfect text for college courses in a variety of fields, including history, government, communication, and politics. It is also a challenging book for AP high school classes. Rosenberg beautifully combines the legal discussions with stories of contemporary examples, and leaves plenty of space to add new examples that will surely present themselves on a regular basis. It is guaranteed to start a discussion!"
"The past greets the present in Ian Rosenberg’s captivating free speech stories. These true-to-life accounts invite readers to reflect on the value of liberty and the price of freedom. Rosenberg’s revealing narratives, based on ten seminal cases, are crafted with the finesse of a gifted writer combined with the acumen of a learned lawyer. Forceful yet thoughtful, credible yet concise, historical yet modern, engaging yet erudite — they all tumble together in The Fight for Free Speech, a mind-opening book aptly fit for our times."
"The Fight For Free Speech is as clear as its title. In choosing ten areas of enormous conflict with respect to the scope of free expression and describing cases as to each in a manner that the widest range of readers can both understand and enjoy, Ian Rosenberg has done us all a great service. That this book should be released at a time when the First Amendment is under sustained attack makes it all the more valuable."
01/01/2021
Media attorney Rosenberg offers an accessible explanation of the right to free speech, chronicling recent news accounts that involve the First Amendment, then describing relevant Supreme Court cases. At the Women's March of 2017, Madonna stated that she had thought about blowing up the White House. Though she was legally entitled to say so, Rosenberg notes that a century ago, she would have been arrested; Abrams v. United States in 1919 upheld the conviction of Russian Jewish anarchists who had distributed anti-U.S. leaflets. Parkland students were able to organize a nationwide student walkout in part because of Tinker v. Des Moines, which in 1969 recognized high school students' rights to protest the Vietnam War by wearing black armbands. Tackling everything from former NFL player Colin Kaepernick's decision to kneel during the national anthem to the Westboro Baptist Church's picketing of funerals of gay people, the author provides ample historical context. VERDICT Rosenberg presents challenging, provocative material in an engaging manner that will have readers pondering these issues. Anyone interested in the history of free speech and the Supreme Court will enjoy this extensively researched book.—Karen Sandlin Silverman, Mt. Ararat Middle Sch., Topsham, ME
★ 2020-11-18
A deep dive into 10 precedent-setting legal actions that helped define the scope—and limits—of the First Amendment.
“Most of my career has focused on explaining complicated legal concepts to smart people who are not lawyers,” writes media lawyer Rosenberg. His approach is admirably free of legal locutions, though his discussions of some concepts are subtle. Consider two cases that formed the precedent for whether a government can compel expression regarding the Pledge of Allegiance—which, until 1942, was accompanied by a salute uncomfortably like that of the Nazis. Religious in origin, the objections to reciting the pledge came from Christians who believed that to do so would be to worship a graven image. The Supreme Court eventually agreed, though it has remained reticent on the question of whether municipalities and other governments can compel a person to sing the national anthem. Situated within the same general legal domain are such matters as former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s habit of taking a knee during the anthem to protest police brutality, which excited angry commentary from the Trump administration, some of whose principals have demanded overhauling libel laws to suppress criticism. That’s unlikely to happen given the court’s widespread acceptance of the argument, advanced by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., that “the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out.” This broad interpretation allowed Madonna to muse about blowing up the White House when Trump took office, just as it protected students prosecuted in the 1960s for their slogan “Fuck the draft.” The toughest nut in the book is the dividing line between hate speech and free speech, a discussion that anyone in media and legal circles will want to study closely.
Essential reading for journalists, political activists, and ordinary citizens alike.
| BN ID: | 2940176152364 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | HighBridge Company |
| Publication date: | 06/29/2021 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
