BOOK REVIEW
Fight of the Century: Writers Reflect on 100 Years of Landmark ACLU Cases by Viet Thanh Nguyen, Jacqueline Woodson, and 39 more. Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster, 2020. 336 pages. hardcover. $27.99.
and
Democracy, If We Can Keep It: The ACLU’s 100-Year Fight for Rights in America by Ellis Cose. The New Press. 480 pages. hardcover. $29.99. To be published August 4, 2020.
To mark its 100-year anniversary, the American Civil Liberties Union is publishing these two histories. Both are well worth reading.
Fight of the Century: Writers Reflect on 100 Years of Landmark ACLU Cases was curated in cooperation with the ACLU by authors Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman. It is an anthology of essays about important cases in the organization’s history that includes prominent cases like Brown v. Board of Education, Roe v. Wade and Miranda v. Arizona, as well as others whose outcomes influenced the law and living. For example, Hector Tobar discusses Ernesto Miranda, the felon whose wrongful conviction inspired the Miranda rights. There also are essays from Neil Gaiman, Meg Wolitzer, Salman Rushdie, Ann Patchett, Louise Erdrich, George Saunders, and others. Chabon and Waldman are donating their advance to the ACLU and the contributors are forgoing payment.
Democracy, If We Can Keep It: The ACLU’s 100-Year Fight for Rights in America is a history of the ACLU by the nationally celebrated journalist, bestselling author (The Rage of a Privileged Class, The End of Anger), and the ACLU's first official writer-in-residence.
The book tells the story of the ACLU as well as the fight for rights that were legal but not enjoyed by all. It chronicles the ACLU's involvement in work around World War I, the Red Scare, the Scottsboro Boys’ trials, Japanese American internment, McCarthyism, Vietnam, 9/11, Edward Snowden, and the current American President.
Fight of the Century: Writers Reflect on 100 Years of Landmark ACLU Cases was curated in cooperation with the ACLU by authors Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman. It is an anthology of essays about important cases in the organization’s history that includes prominent cases like Brown v. Board of Education, Roe v. Wade and Miranda v. Arizona, as well as others whose outcomes influenced the law and living. For example, Hector Tobar discusses Ernesto Miranda, the felon whose wrongful conviction inspired the Miranda rights. There also are essays from Neil Gaiman, Meg Wolitzer, Salman Rushdie, Ann Patchett, Louise Erdrich, George Saunders, and others. Chabon and Waldman are donating their advance to the ACLU and the contributors are forgoing payment.
Democracy, If We Can Keep It: The ACLU’s 100-Year Fight for Rights in America is a history of the ACLU by the nationally celebrated journalist, bestselling author (The Rage of a Privileged Class, The End of Anger), and the ACLU's first official writer-in-residence.
