American Law

In 1974, Pan American Flight 806 was hoping to land safely in Pago Pago, Samoa, but instead plummeted at 140 miles per hour into the jungle floor. The 101 passengers and crew members all survived this devastating crash. Unfortunately, only four of them escaped the wreckage before the ensuing fire that followed and lived to tell their story. After the disaster, Pan American was found guilty of "willful misconduct" after the longest and most expensive trial in aviation history.

Jim Gash's comfortable life as a Los Angeles lawyer and law professor nearly ensured that he and Henry, a Ugandan boy languishing in prison for two murders he didn't commit, would never meet. Henry was losing hope and prayed for a sign from God. Halfway around the world, Jim listened to best-selling author of Love Does Bob Goff encourage lawyers to use their legal training to help imprisoned children in Africa. Jim felt an irresistible urge to respond to this call.

Three years into a financial crisis that shows no sign of loosening its grip, a young couple make the unpopular decision to teach English in Saudi Arabia. The choice of Saudi Arabia is based primarily on the best salary offer and an all-expenses-paid round trip flight. Secondarily, it is to satiate a desire to explore a country steeped in mystery and taboo. Little do they know that the experience will come with a price and change their lives in a profound way.

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR A collection of provocative essays exploring the key social justice issues of our time—from George Floyd to antiracism to inequality and the Supreme Court. Kennedy is "among the most incisive American commentators on race" (The New York Times)...

A Washington Post Notable Book of the Year A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice An award-winning constitutional law scholar at the University of Chicago (who clerked for Judge Merrick B. Garland, Justice Stephen Breyer, and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor) gives us an engaging and...

Even after the institution of slavery became illegal, the legacy of slavery continued through injustices created by the Jim Crow laws. Learn more about these discriminatory laws that have shaped America's past and present. Inspired by a belief that knowledge is power, Read Woke Books seek to amplify the voices of people who are not white, provide information about groups that have been disenfranchised, share perspectives of people who have been underrepresented or oppressed, challenge social norms and disrupt the status quo, and encourage readers to take action in their community.

"Tax Free at Last" is a true story about income tax law, tracing its roots over 100 years ago from a simple tax collection method to an uncontrollable force that impacts all citizens' lives. The book sheds light on unexplored corners of the income tax world and advocates for a complete overhaul of the tax system.

Dovey Johnson Roundtree was most famous for her successful defense of an indigent Black man accused of the murder of Mary Pinchot Meyer, a prominent White Washington, DC, socialite, in 1965. Despite her triumph in this high-profile case, Roundtree continued to represent the poor and the underserved. She was the first lawyer to bring a bus-desegregation case before the Interstate Commerce Commission, clinching the ruling that enabled Robert F. Kennedy to enforce bus integration. She was also among the first Black women to enter the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps.

Presented by the National Constitution Center, an inspirational collection of essays exploring the founding principles that continue to shape American democracy from the nation’s leading constitutional scholars across the political spectrum. The Declaration was just the beginning. The...

The world needs a strong America, and America needs an economic revival after the Coronavirus season of shutdowns. Can the playbook that resulted in the greatest job market in history put Americans back to work? From the first moments of his presidency, Donald J. Trump put US economic revival at...

*L.A. Times Book Prize Finalist* *New York Times Book Review Paperback Row* *New York Times Books to Watch for in July* *Time Best New Books July 2020* Galvanized by her work in our nation's jails, psychiatrist Christine Montross illuminates the human cost of mass incarceration and mental...

A concise, accessible, and engaging guide to the law of treason, written by the nation’s foremost expert on the subject The only crime defined in the United States Constitution, treason is routinely described by judges as more heinous than murder. Today the term is regularly thrown around by...

Thurgood Marshall, the African-American lawyer who successfully argued the Brown v. Board case. Today, Marshall is best known for being the first Black Supreme Court justice, but that history-setting precedent has come to overshadow the instrumental work he did as chief counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Marshall argued more cases before the Supreme Court than anyone in history and would win nearly 30 of them, including the seminal Brown v. Board case.

Frontier Law follows the exploits of Texas Ranger Frank Sirocco when he rides into San Ysidro to investigate the murder of two colleagues. Up against a deadly band of killers, gunfighters and renegades, Sirocco will need all of his wits and guns to survive this one. Fortunately, help arrived from unexpected sources.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in his own words: the definitive collection of his opinions, speeches, and articles on the most essential and vexing legal questions, with an intimate foreword by Justice Elena Kagan “[Scalia’s writings] are as readable today as they were when they first...

In this alarming book, Fox News commentator Judge Napolitano makes the solid case that there is a pernicious and ever-expanding pattern of government abuse in America's criminal justice system, leading him to establish his general creed: "The government is not your friend." As an attorney, a law...

Starting with Bad Behavior in the 1980s, Mary Gaitskill has been writing about gender relations with searing, even prophetic honesty. In This Is Pleasure, she considers our present moment through the lens of a particular #MeToo incident. The effervescent, well-dressed Quin, a successful book...

How states are making their legal systems more equitable, seen through the story of a Black man falsely imprisoned for thirty years for murder. In 1987, Ben Spencer, a twenty-two-year-old Black man from Dallas, was convicted of murdering white businessman Jeffrey Young—a crime he didn’t...

The long journey of an American song, passed down from generation to generation, bridging a nation’s fraught disconnect between history and warped illusion, revealing the country's ever evolving self. MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME, from its enormous success in the early 1850s, written by a white man...

During his 28-year career, Matthew Horace rose through the ranks from a police officer working the beat to a federal agent working criminal cases in some of the toughest communities in America to a highly decorated federal law enforcement executive managing high-profile investigations nationwide...