Civil Liberties

Voting is our most important right as Americans—“the right that protects all the others,” as Lyndon Johnson famously said when he signed the Voting Rights Act—but it’s also the one most violently contested throughout US history. Since the gutting of the act in the landmark Shelby County v. Holder case in 2013, many states have passed laws restricting the vote. After the 2020 election, President Trump’s effort to overturn the vote has evolved into a slow-motion coup, with many Republicans launching an all-out assault on our democracy.

Siamo immersi nelle turbolenze di una crisi spaventosa ma che può spalancarci – se sapremo agire con decisione – la strada di una grande svolta, quel cambiamento duraturo che in tanti auspichiamo. Oggi, nel mondo, una donna su tre è vittima di abusi e quotidianamente oltre cento donne sono assassinate da uomini che dichiarano di amarle. Occorre intervenire prima che questo tsunami di violenza destabilizzi, con conseguenze fisiche e psicologiche, anche le prossime generazioni, perché la violenza si ripercuote su tutta la famiglia e su intere comunità, e Rula Jebreal lo sa bene.

En los últimos 15 años, México ha librado algunas de sus batallas más importantes... en la Suprema Cortede Justicia de la Nación. Ahí se han debatido—y definido—los límites a la libertad de expresión, los derechos de los indígenas a juicios justos, las fronteras de la privacidad, la inclusión, el valor de los tratados internacionales e incluso el "derecho a la irreverencia". Y gracias a jueces como José Ramón Cossío, las perspectivas más progresistas han ido ganando terreno. En esta obra, el exministro explica algunos de los votos más importantes de su carrera.

"When, if ever, does a thought cross the line and become a crime?" Raw Deal is the untold story of former New York City police officer Gil Valle, who in 2012 became known throughout the world as "The Cannibal Cop." It is the controversial saga of a man who was imprisoned for "thought crimes", and a look into a world of dark sexuality and violence that most listeners don't know exists, except maybe in their nightmares.

Within It Is Dangerous to Be Right When the Government Is Wrong, New York Times (2011) best-selling author and judge Andrew P. Napolitano lays out the case that the US government, whose first obligation is to protect and preserve individual freedoms, actually does neither.

Though often taken for granted, the modern American public defender is a recent invention with a surprisingly contentious history - one that offers insights not only about the "carceral state" but also about the contours and compromises of 20th-century liberalism.

Ballot box voting is often considered the essence of political freedom. But it has two major shortcomings: individual voters have little chance of making a difference, and they also face strong incentives to remain ignorant about the issues at stake. "Voting with your feet", however, avoids both of these pitfalls and offers a wider range of choices. In Free to Move, Ilya Somin explains how broadening opportunities for foot voting can greatly enhance political liberty for millions of people around the world.

A provocative case for integration as the single most radical, discomfiting idea in America, yet the only enduring solution to the racism that threatens our democracy.

By March 4, 1865, the Civil War had slaughtered more than 700,000 Americans. After a morning of rain-drenched fury, tens of thousands crowded Washington’s Capitol grounds that day to see Abraham Lincoln take the oath for a second term. As the sun emerged, Lincoln rose to give perhaps the greatest inaugural address in American history, stunning the nation by arguing, in a brief 701 words, that both sides had been wrong, and that the war’s unimaginable horrors - every drop of blood spilled - might well have been God’s just verdict on the national sin of slavery.

The 27th United States Colored Troops (USCT), composed largely of free black Ohio men, served in the Union army from April 1864 to September 1865 in Virginia and North Carolina. It was the first time most members of the unit had traveled so far from home. The men faced daily battles against racism and inferior treatment, training, and supplies. They suffered from the physical difficulties of military life, the horrors of warfare, and homesickness and worried about loved ones left at home without financial support.

Vor dem Gesetz sind alle gleich. Doch was geschieht, wenn geltendes Recht nicht mehr für jeden gilt und nicht ausnahmslos greift? Wenn gefällte Urteile nicht vollzogen werden? Wenn der Staat auf neue Entwicklungen in Zeiten von Digitalisierung und Globalisierung nicht angemessen reagiert? Wenn die Balance zwischen Freiheit und Sicherheit zunehmend zu Lasten der Freiheit verloren geht? Wenn zwar der Sozialstaat weiter ausgebaut wird, die Kernaufgaben des Rechtsstaates aber vernachlässigt werden?

In The Accident of Color, Daniel Brook journeys to 19th-century New Orleans and Charleston and introduces us to cosmopolitan residents who elude the racial categories the rest of America takes for granted. Before the Civil War, these free, openly mixed-race urbanites enjoyed some rights of citizenship and the privileges of wealth and social status. But after Emancipation, as former slaves move to assert their rights, the black-white binary that rules the rest of the nation begins to intrude.

This well-researched book, which is volume I of a multi-volume set, represents everything our current Trump administration does not. It focuses on the heroes of our past who labored for monumental reform and urged our nation to keep the American promise that "all men are created equal", thus creating a more just and egalitarian society than the one they were born into.

As president of the Human Rights Commission, Gillian Triggs advocated for the disempowered, the disenfranchised, the marginalised. She withstood relentless political pressure and media scrutiny as she defended the defenceless for five tumultuous years. How did this aspiring ballet dancer, dignified daughter of a tank commander and eminent law academic respond when appreciative passengers on a full airplane departing Canberra greeted her with a round of applause?

Called "a world-class power broker" by the Washington Post, Robert Brown has been a sought-after counselor for an impressive array of the famous and powerful, including every American president since John F. Kennedy. But as a child born into poverty in the 1930s, Robert was raised by his grandmother to think differently about success. For example, "The best way to influence others is to be helpful", she told him. And, "You can’t go wrong by doing right." Fueled by these lessons, Brown went on to play a pivotal, mostly unseen role alongside the powerful of our time.

Possibly the most emotionally charged debate taking place in the US today centers on the Second Amendment and the rights of citizens to bear arms. In the wake of school massacres, the gun rights movement, headed by the National Rifle Association, appears more intractable than ever in its fight against gun control laws. Their core argument is that the proliferation of firearms is essential to maintaining freedom in America, providing private citizens with a defense against possible government tyranny, and thus safeguarding all our other rights. But is this argument valid? Do guns indeed make us free?

The fascinating and very moving story of the lovers, lawyers, judges, and activists behind the groundbreaking Supreme Court case that led to one of the most important national civil rights victories in decades - the legalization of same-sex marriage.

The Border Patrol has grown exponentially, ICE detention centers have cropped up across the country, and the southern border is more militarized than ever before, but we are no safer. Instead, families are being ripped apart, undocumented people are living in fear, and thousands of migrants have died in detention or crossing the border. Taking listeners to the border patrol outposts, unmarked graves, detention centers, and halls of power, Sand and Blood is a frightening, essential story we ignore at our peril.

Now is an extraordinary time. Across the country, people are losing their loved ones, their livelihoods, their homes, and even their own lives to COVID-19. Despite the pandemic, countless protests erupted this summer over the recurring loss of Black lives. Reverberations of shock and outrage remain with us all. There's a Revolution Outside, My Love captures and articulates all of these roiling sentiments unleashed by a profound national reckoning.

For years, Pastors John Siebeling and Wayne Francis have led thriving congregations that are the embodiment of diversity; Siebeling in Memphis and Francis in New York City. Many churches and leaders have sought their counsel, hoping to emulate their success. At the height of the Black Lives Matter protests in Summer 2020, they pooled their insights and experiences to help others facilitate conversations about racism. The guide they developed is the basis of God and Race.