The Big Trial

The trial of O. J. Simpson was a sensation, avidly followed by millions of people, but it was also, in a sense, nothing new. One hundred years earlier the Lizzie Borden trial had held the nation in thrall. The names (and the crimes) may change, but the appeal is enduring—and why this is, how it works, and what it means are what Lawrence Friedman investigates in The Big Trial. What is it about these cases that captures the public imagination? Are the “headline trials” of our period different from those of a century or two ago? And what do we learn from them, about the nature of our society, past and present? To get a clearer picture, Friedman first identifies what certain headline trials have in common, then considers particular cases within each grouping. The political trial, for instance, embraces treason and spying, dissenters and radicals, and, to varying degrees, corruption and fraud. Celebrity trials involve the famous—whether victims, as in the case of Charles Manson, or defendants as disparate as Fatty Arbuckle and William Kennedy Smith—but certain high-profile cases, such as those Friedman categorizes as tabloid trials, can also create celebrities. The fascination of whodunit trials can be found in the mystery surrounding the case: Are we sure about O. J. Simpson? What about Claus von Bulow—tried, in another sensational case, for sending his wife into a coma.? An especially interesting type of case Friedman groups under the rubric worm in the bud. These are cases, such as that of Lizzie Borden, that seem to put society itself on trial; they raise fundamental social questions and often suggest hidden and secret pathologies. And finally, a small but important group of cases proceed from moral panic, the Salem witchcraft trials being the classic instance, though Friedman also considers recent examples. Though they might differ in significant ways, these types of trials also have important similarities. Most notably, they invariably raise questions about identity (Who is this defendant? A villain? An innocent unfairly accused?). And in this respect, The Big Trial shows us, the headline trial reflects a critical aspect of modern society. Reaching across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to the latest outrage, from congressional hearings to lynching and vigilante justice to public punishment, from Dr. Sam Sheppard (the “fugitive”) to Jeffrey Dahmer (the “cannibal”), The Rosenbergs to Timothy McVeigh, the book presents a complex picture of headline trials as displays of power—moments of “didactic theater”" that demonstrate in one way or another whether a society is fair, whom it protects, and whose interest it serves.

Three Short Stories in One Book! The Big Fight, Las Vegas Story, and Dog Tail.

Liberia's Deadest Ends is a novel based on fact. It is about trust and truth: what or whom to trust, and when. Truth in Liberia during the civil war had become distorted, embellished, abandoned, and abused out of bravado, fear, shame, or self-protection. No one seemed to know the difference between truth and rumor anymore. The novel is set in Liberia from 2004 to 2012, after the declaration of peace and the end of two protracted and bloody civil wars: December 1989-1997 and 1999-2003. The country is recovering economically and mentally through government stabilization and services; recording Truth and Reconciliation statements of human rights violations; and the criminal trial of former president, Charles Taylor. Jorja Himmermann, an international aid worker, monitors the resurgence of education programs, peace building, community development, child labor, and the protection of former child soldiers. As the country's past truths are revealed, Jorja seeks her own truths: of elusive pygmy hippos; the burns on her driver's body; the extradition of her British friend; and her relationship with an enigmatic Moroccan journalist. It reveals whom Jorja can really trust.

"The definitive work on Stalin's purges, the author's The Great Terror was universally acclaimed when it first appeared in 1968. Provides accounts of on everything form the three great 'Moscow Trials' to methods of obtaining confessions, the purge of writers and other members of the intelligentsia, on life in the labor camps, and many other key matters. On the fortieth anniversary of thew first edition, it is remarkable how many of the most disturbing conclusions have born up under the light of fresh evidence." --

On August 20, 1940, Marxist philosopher, politician, and revolutionary Leon Trotsky was attacked with an ice axe in his home in Coyoacán, Mexico. He died the next day. In The Great Prince Died, Bernard Wolfe offers his lyrical, fictionalized account of Trotsky’s assassination as witnessed through the eyes of an array of characters: the young American student helping to translate the exiled Trotsky’s work (and to guard him), the Mexican police chief, a Rumanian revolutionary, the assassin and his handlers, a poor Mexican “peón,” and Trotsky himself. Drawing on his own experiences working as the exiled Trotsky’s secretary and bodyguard and mixing in digressions on Mexican culture, Stalinist tactics, and Bolshevik history, Wolfe interweaves fantasy and fact, delusion and journalistic reporting to create one of the great political novels of the past century.

The Tenth Cruiser Squadron of the Grand Fleet had the task of patrolling the seas between Scotland and Greenland to intercept enemy ships trying to escape into the ocean and merchant ships who could be carrying goods destined for Germany. This was a task of great political sensitivity, since almost all the ships intercepted were neutrals, and requiring great physical endurance from ships and men in the violent North Atlantic. The Maritime Blockade of Germany in the Great War is a comprehensive collection of the records of the Northern Patrol. It consists of regular reports of the admirals in command, to which are added other relevant official records, and more informal documents. There are the chatty letters of Captain Vivian and HMS Patia, the appalling experiences of young officers placed in barely seaworthy sailing ships to see that they went into port for examination, the patehtic 'mutiny' by a bored, distressed and underpaid black gang, the diary of Able Seaman Style, demonstrating the tedium of the patrol, and the self-satisfied diary of Dr Shaw. There are also the casualities: ships overwhelmed by storms, sunk by enemy action, torpedoed. The ships of the Patrol were perhaps the most constantly active Royal Navy vessels in the Great War, a barely acknowledged yet vital component in the eventual Allied victory

Although psychotherapy research shares many of the same methodological issues that pharmacology trials do, psychotherapy research poses unique challenges, including the difficulty (if not near impossibility) of keeping participants blind to treatment assignment, the need for a replicable manual and therapist training procedure, the importance of outside observation of therapy quality ratings, and the problems researchers face in measuring the active ingredients of psychotherapy. High-Quality Psychotherapy Research is for all psychotherapy investigators who wish to learn state-of-the-art psychotherapy research methods. Organized developmentally, the book explains the conceptualization of the trial, discusses the pilot study and the large scale study, and concludes with instructions for designing a multi-site trial. Topics specific to psychotherapy research are examined in detail, including innovations in data analysis, how to conduct multi-site psychotherapy trials, mediation of treatment outcomes, the transportability of evidence-based behavioral interventions in community practice, training community providers to be study therapists, and recruiting hard-to-reach populations. High-Quality Psychotherapy Research is an informative, practical book appropriate for a broad range of readers, from junior investigators developing their first study idea to seasoned investigators who wish to take their research to a larger-scale level.

Does an emergent democracy have an obligation to prosecute its former dictators for crimes against humanity—for what Arendt and Kant called "radical evil"? What impact will such prosecutions have on the future of democracy? In this book, Carlos Santiago Nino offers a provocative first-hand analysis of developments in Argentina during the 1980s, when a brutal military dictatorship gave way to a democratic government. Nino played a key role in guiding the transition to democracy and in shaping the human rights policies of President Ra�l Alfons�n after the fall of the military junta in 1983. The centerpiece of Alfons�n's human rights program was the trial held in a federal court in Buenos Aires in 1985, which resulted in the convictions of five of the leading members of the junta that ruled the country from 1976 to 1983. Placing the Argentine experience in the context of the war crimes trials at Nuremberg, Tokyo, and elsewhere, Nino examines the broader questions raised by human rights trials. He considers their political repercussions and their potential for strengthening the new democratic government. He explains why prosecutions for human rights violations should be grounded on a theory of the criminal law that emphasizes the preventive rather than retributive functions of punishment. Nino rejects the obligation to punish perpetrators of radical evil and argues instead for a more forward-looking duty—to safeguard democracy. This, he believes, is what ultimately justified the Argentine trials and should be the focus of any international action.