Matters Of Principle

Were the values of mainstream America reflected in the rejection of Robert Bork's nomination to the Supreme Court? Senate Judiciary Committee senior staffer Mark Gitenstein tackles that question and provides a keen analyis of Bork in this provocative insider's account of the battle for control of the Supreme Court.

The United States is generally believed to be a liberal, rights-based culture. In such a society, Richard S. Markovits asserts, arguments of moral principle are the dominant type of legitimate legal argument. Markovits analyzes various rights associated with our society's basic duties of showing appropriate, equal respect for all creatures capable of moral integrity and appropriate, equal concern for their actualizing this potential. Ranging widely and covering in depth such flashpoint issues as educational rights, minimum real-income rights, privacy rights, abortion, parenting, sexual liberties, and the right to die, Matters of Principle is a deeply engaged and thoughtful work, certain to be controversial and much debated.

"I never ask for mercy and seek no one's sympathy. I would never, as was once needlessly feared in this court, be a fugitive from justice in this country, only a seeker of it." —Conrad Black, in his statement to the court, June 24, 2011 In 1993, Conrad Black was the proprietor of London's Daily Telegraph and the head of one of the world's largest newspaper groups. He completed a memoir in 1992, A Life in Progress, and "great prospects beckoned." In 2004, he was fired as chairman of Hollinger International after he and his associates were accused of fraud. Here, for the first time, Black describes his indictment, four-month trial in Chicago, partial conviction, imprisonment, and largely successful appeal. In this unflinchingly revealing and superbly written memoir, Black writes without reserve about the prosecutors who mounted a campaign to destroy him and the journalists who presumed he was guilty. Fascinating people fill these pages, from prime ministers and presidents to the social, legal, and media elite, among them: Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, George W. Bush, Jean Chrétien, Rupert Murdoch, Izzy Asper, Richard Perle, Norman Podhoretz, Eddie Greenspan, Alan Dershowitz, and Henry Kissinger. Woven throughout are Black's views on big themes: politics, corporate governance, and the U.S. justice system. He is candid about highly personal subjects, including his friendships - with those who have supported and those who have betrayed him - his Roman Catholic faith, and his marriage to Barbara Amiel. And he writes about his complex relations with Canada, Great Britain, and the United States, and in particular the blow he has suffered at the hands of that nation. In this extraordinary book, Black maintains his innocence and recounts what he describes as "the fight of and for my life." A Matter of Principle is a riveting memoir and a scathing account of a flawed justice system.

This is a book about fundamental theoretical issues of political philosophy and jurisprudence. In his familiar forceful and incisive style Professor Dworkin guides the reader through a re-examination of some perennial moral, philosophical, and legal dilemmas.

In A Matter of Principle, Jana Wendt, one of Australia's most experienced interviewers, connects with remarkable men and women from the worlds of politics, entertainment, society, art, cinema, sport and architecture. Former US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage, feminist Camille Paglia, screen siren Charlotte Rampling, 'starchitect' Frank Gehry, former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer, Muslim rebel Wafa Sultan, war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte and, in Australia, entertainer Rove McManus, Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty, Olympic swimming champion Shane Gould, writer David Malouf, art critic Robert Hughes and photographer Bill Henson talk to Wendt about where their values lie. Thought-provoking and engagingly revealing, Wendt shows that a life well led is A Matter of Principle.

When Becca and her friends publish an underground newspaper, their principles are put to the test Becca and her friends are fed up with having their school paper controlled by the faculty. They want to run stories that reflect the real challenges high schoolers are facing at Southfield, and they’ll do it themselves if they have to. Except when they do put out an independent underground newspaper, the first edition gets them into a lot of trouble. Becca’s dad, a lawyer, is helping her stand on principle, but not everyone can afford to deal with the repercussions the same way she does—financially or emotionally. Can Becca learn to love her friends and still let them make their own decisions, even if they make mistakes? If she doesn’t, she might not have any friends left.

This is a book about fundamental theoretical issues of political philosophy and jurisprudence. In his familiar forceful and incisive style Professor Dworkin guides the reader through a re-examination of some perennial moral, philosophical, and legal dilemmas.