American Legal

Law has played a central role in American history. From colonial times to the present, law has not just reflected the changing society in which legal decisions have been made - it has played a powerful role in shaping that society, though not always in positive ways. Eminent legal scholar G. Edward White offers a compact overview that sheds light on the impact of law on a number of key social issues. 

A withering and witty examination of how the American legal system, burdened by complexity and untrammeled growth, fails Americans and threatens the rule of law itself, by the acclaimed author of A Generation of Sociopaths. Our trial courts conduct hardly any trials, our correctional systems do...

Dr. Michael Baden has been involved in some of the most high-profile civil rights and police brutality cases in United States history, from the government's 1976 re-investigation of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., to the 2014 death of Michael Brown, whose case sparked the initial Ferguson protests that grew into the Black Lives Matter movement. The playbook hasn't changed since 1979, when Dr. Baden was demoted from his job as New York City's Chief Medical Examiner after ruling that the death of a Black man in police custody was a homicide.

“A haunting true crime tale of systemic incompetence and racism” (New York Times) – and its devastating effect on innocent lives After two three-year-old girls were raped and murdered in rural Mississippi, law enforcement pursued and convicted two innocent men: Kennedy Brewer and Levon...

Cartel Bands On takes a deep dive into the realities of the American immigration system. Written by a retired Border Patrol Agent, this book combines factual analysis with firsthand experiences from the author's career. With a clear and accessible approach, it explores the history and laws governing immigration while providing a closer look at what both legal and illegal migrants encounter upon entering the country. Listeners are invited to challenge their assumptions and critically assess whether the system is truly broken. If it is, how should it be fixed?

People on the right are furious. People on the left are livid. And the center isn’t holding. There is only one thing on which almost everyone agrees: there is something very wrong in Washington. The country is being run by pollsters. Few politicians are able to win the voters’ trust. Blame...

The gripping story of one American lawyer’s obsessive crusade—waged at any cost—against Big Oil on behalf of the poor farmers and indigenous tribes of the Amazon rainforest. Steven Donziger, a self-styled social activist and Harvard educated lawyer, signed on to a budding class action...

In the second thrilling novel in New York Times bestselling author Lisa Scottoline’s Rosato & Associates series, a successful lawyer now finds herself on the opposite side of the bench when she’s framed for murder. Benedetta “Bennie” Rosato is a maverick lawyer who prosecutes police...

In 1904 Czarist Russia, four-year-old Max witnesses the rape and murder of his mother by Russian soldiers. After the boy’s father extracts terrible revenge, the father and son escape to New York, a teeming melting pot of immigrants. Max meets a young Polish girl, Sophie, who grows into a stunningly beautiful young woman. The two fall in love but their plans are shattered when Sophie is forced to marry a local crime boss and, once again, Max must watch as the most important person in his life is taken from him.

People on the right are furious. People on the left are livid. And the center isn’t holding. There is only one thing on which almost everyone agrees: there is something very wrong in Washington. The country is being run by pollsters. Few politicians are able to win the voters’ trust. Blame...

Six years ago, a group of complete strangers began gathering each morning for coffee in a convenience store, The American Market, on the outskirts of Washington, DC, and a community was born. Their story is chronicled by Charlie Pratt, son of a wealthy New England family. After a legal education that left him marginally disinterested in law, Charlie moved to Washington where he lived a comfortable and solitary life until he (and his fat and affable Black Lab, Flynn) became a central player in the morning group at the Market.

In this disturbing yet elegant exposé of U.S. penitentiaries and their surrounding communities, Sasha Abramsky shows how American prisons have abandoned their long-held ideal of rehabilitation, often for political reasons. After surveying our current state of affairs-life sentences for...

At the same time that the Civil Rights Movement brought increasing opportunities for blacks, the United States liberalized its immigration policy. While the broadening of the United States's borders to non-European immigrants fits with a black political agenda of social justice, recent waves of immigration have presented a dilemma for blacks, prompting ambivalent or even negative attitudes toward migrants. What has an expanded immigration regime meant for how blacks express national attachment?

"Behind my house were 20,000 acres of woods. This was my ocean of great trees and saplings, fast streams and small lakes, ancient stone walls and tiring hills." From this opening, the stage is set for Grant Harper to go on the adventure of a lifetime, a secret trek with Jason Talbot that will change their lives forever. The quest takes them across an ice-covered forest and just when it seems they have acquired the holy grail, the location of Lone Pine, things go terribly wrong.

An incisive and comprehensive view of India’s legal process and its key issuesIndia has the second-largest legal profession in the world, but the systemic delays and chronic impediments of its judicial system inspire little confidence in the common person. In India’s Legal System, renowned...

The American Revolution is replete with seminal moments that every American learns in school, from the “shot heard ‘round the world” to the Declaration of Independence, but the events that led up to the fighting at Lexington & Concord were borne out of 10 years of division between the British and their American colonies over everything from colonial representation in governments to taxation, the nature of searches, and the quartering of British regulars in private houses.

In this riveting, behind-the-scenes courtroom drama, a brilliant legal team battles corporate greed and government overreach for our fundamental right to control our genes. When attorney Chris Hansen learned that the U.S. government was issuing patents for human genes to biotech companies, his...