Justice History

Today, seventy-three years after his death, journalists still tell tales of Charles E. Chapin. As city editor of Pulitzeras New York Evening World, Chapin was the model of the take-no-prisoners newsroom tyrant: he drove reporters relentlesslyaand kept his paper in the center ring of the circus...

The inspiring, dramatic, and heartwarming true account of an escaped convict and his wife of thirty-five plus years who never knew his secret, which captured the imaginations of millions on Humans of New York. Bobby and Cheryl Love were living in Brooklyn, happily married for decades, when the...

This provocative account of our immigration system's long, racist history reveals how it has become the brutal machine that upends the lives of millions of immigrants today. Each year in the United States, hundreds of thousands of people are arrested, imprisoned, and deported, trapped in what...

Much of what is known of the Norse myths comes from the 10th century onwards. Until this time and, indeed, for centuries afterwards, Norse culture (particularly that of Iceland, where the myths were eventually transcribed) was an oral culture. In fact, in all Scandinavian countries well into the thirteenth century laws were memorized by officials known as “Lawspeakers” who recited them at the “Thing.” The Thing was the legislative assembly in Scandinavia “held for judicial purposes”. One of the most famous of these lawspeakers was the Icelander Snorri Sturluson.

Africa may have given rise to the first human beings, and Egypt probably gave rise to the first great civilizations, which continue to fascinate modern societies across the globe nearly 5,000 years later. From the Library and Lighthouse of Alexandria to the Great Pyramid at Giza, the ancient Egyptians produced several wonders of the world, revolutionized architecture and construction, created some of the world’s first systems of mathematics and medicine, and established language and art that spread across the known world.

This is the story of Clarence Henderson, a wrongfully accused Black sharecropper, who was sentenced to die three different times for a murder he didn’t commit, and of the prosecution desperate to pin the crime on him despite scant evidence. His first trial lasted only a day and featured a lackluster public defense.

Makes a powerful argument for adopting a model of restorative justice as part of the Innocence Movement so exonerees, crime victims, and their communities can come together to heal. In Rectify, a former Innocence Project director and journalist Lara Bazelon puts a face to the growing number of...

In Superman Is Jewish? Harry Brod reveals the links between Jews and superheroes in a penetrating investigation of iconic comic book figures. He describes how the role of each hero reflects the evolution of the Jewish place in American culture - an alien in a foreign land, like Superman; a figure plagued by guilt for not having saved his family, like Spider-Man; outsiders persecuted for being different (X-Men); a nice, smart guy afraid people won't like him when he's angry (the Hulk).

Set in Appalachian coal country, this “superb” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) legal drama follows one determined lawyer as he faces a coal industry giant in a seven-year battle over clean drinking water for a West Virginia community. For two decades, the water in the taps and wells of Mingo...

An incisive biography of the Supreme Court's enigmatic Chief Justice, taking us inside the momentous legal decisions of his tenure so far. John Roberts was named to the Supreme Court in 2005 claiming he would act as a neutral umpire in deciding cases. His critics argue he has been anything but...

A riveting exploration of how visual media has shifted the narrative on race and reignited the push towards justice by the author of the “worthy and necessary” (The New York Times) Nobody Marc Lamont Hill and the bestselling author and acclaimed journalist Todd Brewster. With his signature...

In this spiritual memoir, a white woman in an interracial marriage and mixed-race family paints a beautiful path from white privilege toward racial healing, from ignorance toward seeing the image of God in everyone she meets. Author and speaker Cara Meredith grew up in a colorless world. From...

Dispatches from Arizona—the front line of a massive human migration—including the voices of migrants, Border Patrol, ranchers, activists, and others For the last decade, Margaret Regan has reported on the escalating chaos along the Arizona-Mexico border, ground zero for immigration since...

The first book in a new series and a thrilling debut from ER doctor turned novelist Tom Miller, The Philosopher’s Flight is an epic historical fantasy set in a World-War-I-era America that “[begins] with rollicking fierceness that grabs readers from its opening lines and doesn’t loosen its...

“A passionate, incisive critique of the many ways in which women and girls of color are systematically erased or marginalized in discussions of police violence.” —Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow Invisible No More is a timely examination of how Black women, Indigenous women...

The explosive story of how William Rehnquist became a Supreme Court Justice, told by the only person who could have revealed this information—John W. Dean. In 1971, William Rehnquist seemed the perfect choice to fill a seat on the United States Supreme Court. He was a young, well-polished...

Why is the city a battleground of hostile principalities and powers? What is the mission of the church in the city? How can the church be supported in accomplishing that mission? These are the questions that Robert Linthicum treats in his comprehensive and probing biblical theology of the city...

Forcing the Spring begins on Election Night 2008, when a controversial California ballot initiative called Proposition 8—which removed the right of gay men and women to marry—passed alongside Barack Obama’s stunning victory. Forcing the Spring details how a small but determined group of...

A history of African Americans in New York City from the 1910s to 1960, told through the life of Samuel Battle, the New York Police Department’s first black officer. When Samuel Battle broke the color line as New York City’s first African American cop in the second decade of the twentieth...

“This isn’t a story about black people—it’s a story about the Left’s agenda to patronize blacks and lie to everyone else.” For decades, the Left has been putting on a play with themselves as heroes in an ongoing civil rights move­ment—which they were mostly absent from at the...