Book Description Review “Moving . . . Entertaining . . . It’s enlightening to watch some of our most masterly literary portraitists restore the warts and wardrobes, the motivations and machinations to those whose stories have been stripped down to surnames or pseudonyms.” —Monica Youn, New York Times Book Review “Vigorous, informative, and well-organized, this outstanding collection befits the ACLU’s substantial impact on American law and society.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)“A stunning collection of original and topical essays . . . [that] vividly brings consequential court cases to life.” —Booklist (starred review)“A finely edited almanac of lively, contextually grounded stories that read like the greatest hits of freedom . . . Provides insights that are both riveting and refreshingly diverse.” —Kirkus Reviews Read more About the Author Dave Eggers is the bestselling author of seven books, including A Hologram for the King, a finalist for the National Book Award; Zeitoun, winner of the American Book Award and Dayton Literary Peace Prize; and What Is the What, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and won France’s Prix Medici. That book, about Valentino Achak Deng, a survivor of the civil war in Sudan, gave birth to the Valentino Achak Deng Foundation, which operates a secondary school in South Sudan run by Mr. Deng. Eggers is the founder and editor of McSweeney’s, an independent publishing house based in San Francisco that produces a quarterly journal, a monthly magazine, The Believer:, a quarterly DVD of short films and documentaries, Wholphin, and an oral history series, Voice of Witness. In 2002, with Nínive Calegari he cofounded 826 Valencia, a nonprofit writing and tutoring center for youth in the Mission District of San Francisco. Local communities have since opened sister 826 centers in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Ann Arbor, Seattle, Boston, and Washington, D.C. Eggers is also the founder of ScholarMatch, a program that matches donors with students needing funds for college tuition. A native of Chicago, Eggers now lives in Northern California with his wife and two children.Meg Wolitzer’s novels include The Female Persuasion; Sleepwalking; This Is Your Life; Surrender, Dorothy; and The Position. She lives in New York City.Moriel Rothman-Zecher is an Israeli-American novelist and poet. He is a 2018 National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” honoree and received a 2017 MacDowell Colony Fellowship for Literature. His writing has been published in The New York Times, The Paris Review’s “The Daily,” Haaretz, and elsewhere. He lives in Yellow Springs, Ohio, with his wife, Kayla, and daughter, Nahar. Read more at TheLefternWall.com and follow him on Twitter @Moriel_RZ. Jennifer Egan is the author of six previous books of fiction: Manhattan Beach, winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellend in Fiction; A Visit from the Goon Squad, which won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award; The Keep; the story collection Emerald City; Look at Me, a National Book Award Finalist; and The Invisible Circus. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, Granta, McSweeney’s, and The New York Times Magazine.Neil Gaiman is an award-winning author of books, graphic novels, short stories, and films for all ages. His titles include Norse Mythology, The Graveyard Book, Coraline, The View from the Cheap Seats, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neverwhere, and the Sandman series of graphic novels, among other works. His fiction has received Newbery, Carnegie, Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, and Eisner awards. The film adaptation of his short story “How to Talk to Girls at Parties” and the second season of the critically acclaimed, Emmy-nominated television adaptation of his novel American Gods will be released in 2018. Born in the UK, he now lives in the United States. Read more Customers Review: In their introduction, editors Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman write, “To understand the vital role that the ACLU plays in American society requires a nuanced understanding of the absolute value of freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom from unwanted search and seizure, of the right to due process and equal justice under the law, even – again, especially – when those rights protect people we find abhorrent or speech that offends us” (pg. xv). The book itself covers forty different cases presented in chronological order, from “Stromberg v. California” (1931) through “ACLU v. United States Department of Defense, et al”. (2018). Some authors, like Jacqueline Woodson on “Powell v. Alabama” (1932) and “Patterson v. Alabama” (1935) or Neil Gaiman on “Reno v. ACLU” (1997) and “Ashcroft v. ACLU” (2004), examine similar cases to show how rulings changed, were refined, or upheld. What emerges is a careful study of jurisprudence in defense of civil liberties over the last century. “Fight of the Century” is a necessary primer for anyone studying civil liberties.
January 19, 2020 marked the 100th anniversary of the founding of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which is devoted to protecting the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution to all individuals. A small group of politically active Americans, including Helen Keller, Jane Addams and Roger Baldwin, created the organization as the result of a fever that spread across America in response to post-World War I nationalist zeal.The history of the ACLU is one of struggle and support of marginalized people and unpopular causes. It is also the history of the hope that America can offer its citizens as an example to the rest of the world of a Bill of Rights and the ideals for which it stands. One hundred years have neither diminished the ACLU’s passion nor its importance and insistence on the recognition of the protections the Constitution provides to every American, no matter how unpopular the cause and even if the people it protects sometimes despise the freedom it represents.FIGHT OF THE CENTURY is a unique collection of essays by a wide range of individuals whose body of work spreads far beyond traditional legal writing. Editors Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman have selected influential, well-known writers, including Neil Gaiman, Marlon James, Salman Rushdie, Ann Patchett and Scott Turow, to offer brief essays about landmark ACLU cases. Each of them gives a unique take on historic decisions, such as Brown v. Board of Education, Roe v. Wade and Loving v. Virginia. In total, 40 cases are discussed here, and the essays range from personal recollections to narrative history. Each piece sheds light on the work of the ACLU as this remarkable organization shaped our Constitution and our country.Sergio De La Pava, a New York attorney and author of three novels, has written a compelling essay on one of the ACLU’s significant victories, Gideon v. Wainwright, the Florida case decided by the Supreme Court that expanded the right to counsel to all serious criminal cases. Prior to the court’s ruling, many states provided attorneys only to those charged with death penalty offenses. In Gideon, the ACLU appeared as an amicus curiae, a friend of the court. But its written contribution was significant, and they were allowed to participate in oral arguments. The decision was unanimous in favor of Clarence Gideon, who was wise enough to ask the trial judge early in the proceedings for an attorney. Gideon persisted in that request all the way to the Supreme Court and eventually prevailed.Contrasting the theory of the law with the harsh realities of life, De La Pava observes that Gideon and his unnamed client — who is housed on Rikers Island in New York and facing a lengthy prison sentence — have one significant difference: “I am never going to be sentenced on the case that links us. I’m free to theorize about the evolution of the right to counsel and the strange relationship it has birthed. Client wants to know when he’s getting out.”In another essay, Scott Turow takes the ACLU to task for its support of the position in Buckley v. Valeo that certain money spent on campaigns is tantamount to speech and protected by the First Amendment. He continues to believe that the ACLU incorrectly argued that many forms of campaign donations should be treated as “speech.” It speaks volumes about the ACLU and its philosophy that a book on major decisions allows one writer to vehemently criticize its position, ending with Turow’s plea for the organization to declare, “We were wrong. We apologize to all Americans for a bad decision made with good intentions. We will work tirelessly to correct our mistake.”FIGHT OF THE CENTURY is an inspiring and thoughtful book that attorneys and all citizens will find befitting of the ACLU’s substantial impact on American law and society.Reviewed by Stuart Shiffman
Fight of the Century is an excellent book covering 100 years of landmark cases that the ACLU has been involved in. The book was compiled with a brief summary of each case that was followed by an essay from a well-known writer discussing the impact of the case on our lives today. Some of the writers even explained h0w the cases had personally affected them. Fight of the Century is such a great collaboration that is sure to keep one’s interest while educating them about the history of the ACLU and the landmark cases that have helped shape how America lives today.
This is a book I’ll be coming back to again and again, both for my own reading and for use in courses I teach. It covers a huge range of civil rights cases, presenting them clearly and offering succinct, engaging reflections on them. This is the kind of writing, involving both research and personal reflection, that I encourage my students to do. If things go as I plan, I will use this as a class text for the first time next winter.
In an age where (it seems) our rights and freedoms are slowly being nibbled away, I find it increasingly reassuring that the American Civil Liberties Union is still fighting and still winning victories. May it ever be so, especially in those cases where popular opinion could very easily overshadow true justice.
This book was a Best of the Best for the month of February 2020, as selected by Stevo’s Book Reviews on the Internet / Stevo’s Nobel Ideas. Search for me on Google for many more reviews and recommendations. |
8 reviews