Liberties Lost: The Endangered Legacy Of The Aclu [Hardcover]

No fight for civil liberties ever stays won, wrote Roger Baldwin (1884-1981) in 1971. He was in a position to know. After working hard to preserve the right of Americans to free expression during World War I, he founded the American Civil Liberties Union in 1920. The ACLU quickly became, and remains to this day, the staunchest defender of American civil liberties. Woody Klein has selected from Baldwin's vast writings those essays that are most pertinent to the civil liberties debate today. In each chapter these writings focus on a particular theme, such as national security or invasion of privacy. Each is followed by commentary from some of America's most prominent politicians and journalists, including Nat Hentoff, Victor Navasky, and Senators Robert C. Byrd, Russell D. Feingold, Christopher J. Dodd, and Edward M. Kennedy.Woody Kleinis a veteran journalist, historian, and an award-winning author who has been writing about social justice and civil liberties for decades. Among his more recent books areToward Humanity and Justice: The Writings of Dr. Kenneth B. Clark, Scholar of the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education,Decision(Praeger, 2004), andWestport, Connecticut: The Story of a New England Town's Rise to Prominence(Greenwood Press, 2000).

This book is recommended reading for all students with an interest in the history of civil liberties. Klein, journalist and historian, has assembled the views of some 20 civil liberties experts in what is essentially a tribute to the late Roger Baldwin. Although not a biography in the strict sense, it amounts to a thorough analysis of Baldwin's works as a public man dedicated almost exclusively to the defense of civil liberties in the US&.Recommended. General readers, lower-division undergraduates through faculty. Choice

[A]n optomistic and affectionate narrative suggesting that the promise of the Bill of Rights can be fulfilled in ways that are relevant in 2007--in ways that alter thlSì