A provocative, timely assessment of the state of free speech in America With his best seller The Working Poor, Pulitzer Prize winner and former New York Times veteran David K. Shipler cemented his place among our most trenchant social commentators. Now he turns his incisive reporting to a critical American ideal: freedom of speech. Anchored in personal stories—sometimes shocking, sometimes absurd, sometimes dishearteningly familiar—Shipler’s investigations of the cultural limits on both expression and the willingness to listen build to expose troubling instabilities in the very foundations of our democracy. Focusing on recent free speech controversies across the nation, Shipler maps a rapidly shifting topography of political and cultural norms: parents in Michigan rallying to teachers vilified for their reading lists; conservative ministers risking their churches’ tax-exempt status to preach politics from the pulpit; national security reporters using techniques more common in dictatorships to avoid leak prosecution; a Washington, D.C., Jewish theater’s struggle for creative control in the face of protests targeting productions critical of Israel; history teachers in Texas quietly bypassing a reactionary curriculum to give students access to unapproved perspectives; the mixed blessings of the Internet as a forum for dialogue about race. These and other stories coalesce to reveal the systemic patterns of both suppression and opportunity that are making today a transitional moment for the future of one of our founding principles. Measured yet sweeping, Freedom of Speech brilliantly reveals the triumphs and challenges of defining and protecting the boundaries of free expression in modern America.

Product Description: Special-interest money is destroying our democratic process. But now that the Citizens United decision has thrown out campaign spending limits as abridgments of free speech, Americans want to know what they can do about it. Derek Cressman gives us the tools, both intellectual and tactical, to fight back...read more

Product Description: Judging Free Speech contains nine original essays by political scientists and law professors, each providing a comprehensive, yet concise and accessible overview of the free speech jurisprudence of a United States Supreme Court Justice.

Product Description: The book, a compilation of essays that look at the constitutional foundations and limitations of the U.S. government in a contemporary context, examines how laws and freedoms collide when information is leaked to the media. It is a practical guide, in easy-to-understand language that journalists, lawyers, and government officials will find to be of great value...read more

Product Description: No right seems more fundamental to American public life than freedom of speech. Yet well into the twentieth century, that freedom was still an unfulfilled promise, with Americans regularly imprisoned merely for speaking out against government policies...read more

This book's reader-friendly approach, dynamic writing style and numerous illustrations present the ins and outs of communication law in an engaging and lively way. Discusses First Amendment principles,common laws, constitutional considerations, privacy factors, advertising, protecting news sources, broadcast regulations and the internet. For anyone wanting to know more about communication law or media law.

Product Description: In the early 1950s, New York City's teachers and professors became the targets of massive investigations into their political beliefs and associations. Those who refused to cooperate in the questioning were fired. Some had undoubtedly been communists, and the Communist Party-USA certainly made its share of mistakes, but there was never evidence that the accused teachers had abused their trust...read more

Product Description: Peter Kerr, who has a nose for both the absurd and the shocking, develops his concerning arguments about the gradual erosion of our human rights, particularly in Great Britain and the United States. He backs up his arguments with plenty of examples, including legislation introduced under the American presidents since Reagan, including Barack Obama...read more

Product Description: The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade stands as a historic victory for abortion-rights activists. But rather than serving as the coda to what had been a comparatively low-profile social conflict, the decision mobilized a wave of anti-abortion protests and ignited a heated struggle that continues to this day...read more

Product Description: No right seems more fundamental to American public life than freedom of speech. Yet well into the twentieth century, that freedom was still an unfulfilled promise, with Americans regularly imprisoned merely for speaking out against government policies...read more

Product Description: No right seems more fundamental to American public life than freedom of speech. Yet well into the twentieth century, that freedom was still an unfulfilled promise, with Americans regularly imprisoned merely for speaking out against government policies...read more

Product Description: Tamara R. Piety argues that increasingly expansive First Amendment protections for commercial speech imperil public health, safety, and welfare; the reliability of commercial and consumer information; the stability of financial markets; and the global environment...read more