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The Trial - A History from Socrates to O. J. Simpson (Paperback)
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The Trial - A History from Socrates to O. J. Simpson (Paperback)
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Loot Price R309
Discovery Miles 3 090
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In an extraordinary history of the criminal trial, Sadakat Kadri
shows with wit, legal insight and a travel writer's eye for detail,
how the irrationality of the past lives on in the legal systems of
the present. A bold and brilliant debut from a prize-winning new
writer. 'The Trial' spans a vast distance in time, opening in the
dread silence of the Egyptian Hall of the Dead and ending with the
melodramas and hubbub of the 21st-century trial circus.
Reconciliation and vengeance, secrecy and spectacle, superstition
and reason all intertwine continually. The book crosses from the
marbled courtrooms of Athens through the ordeal pits of Anglo-Saxon
England, past the torture chambers of the Inquisition to the
judicial theatres of 17th-century Salem, and from 1930s Moscow and
post-war Nuremberg to the virtual courtrooms of modern Hollywood.
Kadri shows throughout how the trial has always been concerned with
doing more than guaranteeing fairness and holding human beings to
account for their deliberate crimes. He recounts how insentient and
irrational defendants from caterpillars to corpses were once
summonsed to court, before being exiled for their failure to attend
or sentenced to die again - and argues that the same urge to punish
lives on in today's trials of children and the mentally ill. But
although Justice's sword has always been double-edged - as ready to
destroy a community's enemies as to defend its dreams of due
process - the judicial contest also operates to enshrine some of
the western world's most cherished values. The show trials of
Stalin's Soviet Union were shams, but Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib
are a reminder that a lack of a trial is equally unjust, and at a
time when our constitutional landscape seems to be melting away, an
appreciation of the criminal courtroom's history is more necessary
than ever. As the Labour government launches an almost annual
attempt to truncate trial by jury, and as authorities on both sides
of the Atlantic are indefinitely detaining people in the name of an
endless war on terror, 'The Trial' could hardly be more timely.
General
Imprint: |
HarperPerennial
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Country of origin: |
United Kingdom |
Release date: |
July 2006 |
First published: |
July 2006 |
Authors: |
Sadakat Kadri
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Dimensions: |
197 x 130 x 33mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback - B-format
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Pages: |
476 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-00-711122-0 |
Categories: |
Books >
Law >
Jurisprudence & general issues >
Legal history
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LSN: |
0-00-711122-3 |
Barcode: |
9780007111220 |
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