The Life of the Law: The People and Cases that Have Shaped Our Society, from King Alfred to Rodney King

Alfred H. Knight, a trial lawyer in Nashville and former prosecutor, captures the arc of Anglo-American law in this sweeping work by focusing on several significant cases. He highlights the trials of Sir Thomas Moore, John Peter Zenger, Clarence Earl Gideon and others to show how the sum of these high-profile and rather disparate cases have contributed to help develop a system of justice. In each of these landmark cases, the desire to protect the individual has triumphed, supporting that belief over time until it has become among our guiding principles of jurisprudence.