The thinking that began this book arose out of some dissatisfaction with the rela tively simplified, unidimensional model of development, which seems to have come to dominate the fields that address the needs of atypically developing chil dren. It seemed impossible to us that developmental differences could explain the range of learning and coping styles we have seen and read about in children iden tified as mentally retarded, slow learning, learning disabled, nonhandicapped, and gifted. If a typical model of development did not account for what children with handicaps to learning could do, when they would do it, and how they would accomplish it, such a model was not likely to imply anything important about how to intervene with and help them. Unfortunately, when we first began to examine this problem, turning away from a developmental model for interpreting atypical behavior meant turning toward a behaviorist one. This was not very satisfying either. Again the assumptions were bothersome. We were expected to accept that all children, this time at all ages as well as with all kinds of diagnoses, learned in essentially the same way with perhaps some variation in rate, reac tivity, reinforcement preferences, and, according to more liberal applications, expectancy. In our search for a more satisfying view of the atypical learner, we were lucky to be lost at the moment when cognitive psychology and systems theory were being found."

Before World War I, the government reaction to labor dissent had been local, ad hoc, and quasi-military. Sheriffs, mayors, or governors would deputize strikebreakers or call out the state militia, usually at the bidding of employers. When the United States entered the conflict in 1917, government and industry feared that strikes would endanger war production; a more coordinated, national strategy would be necessary. To prevent stoppages, the Department of Justice embarked on a sweeping new effort-replacing gunmen with lawyers. The department systematically targeted the nation's most radical and innovative union, the Industrial Workers of the World, also known as the Wobblies, resulting in the largest mass trial in U.S. history. In the first legal history of this federal trial, Dean Strang shows how the case laid the groundwork for a fundamentally different strategy to stifle radical threats, and had a major role in shaping the modern Justice Department. As the trial unfolded, it became an exercise of raw force, raising serious questions about its legitimacy and revealing the fragility of a criminal justice system under great external pressure.

Nancy Gertner launched her legal career by defending antiwar activist Susan Saxe, who was on trial for her role in a robbery that resulted in the murder of a police officer. After this high-profile, highly charged case, Gertner continued to cause a stir in case after riveting case. She threw herself into criminal and civil cases focused on women's rights and civil liberties, establishing herself as a talented and unrepentant advocate for women. Now she looks back on that storied career of groundbreaking firsts and tells of her struggle to succeed personally and professionally while working on benchmark cases.