America on Trial: Inside the Legal Battles That Transformed Our Nation
by By Dershowitz, Alan M.
Category: Law , Legal History

One might wonder how the trial of Mike Tyson or Lizzie Borden "transformed our nation" as opposed to other cases included by Dershowitz (law, Harvard U.), such as the  Brown vs. Board of Education  or  Bush vs. Gore , but the reasoning behind the selection becomes clearer when he notes that the "basic criterion is passion" (i.e. a reflection of the passion of the times, arousing the passion of Americans, etc.). Basing his narratives of 64 American trials on the actual transcripts from the courtroom, he describes such cases as the trials of John Peter Zenger, Aaron Burr, Sacco and Vanzetti, Leopold and Loeb, the Rosenbergs, American Indian Movement activists, Bernhard Goetz, and John DeLorean. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)