Ranters Run Amok: And Other Adventures in the History of the Law

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The Pulitzer Prizewinning constitutional historian Leonard Levy here collects eight of his most important essays of recent years. Written with his characteristic erudition, clarity, directness, and verve, these explorations into the history of the law are at once an entertainment and an education. Mr. Levy begins with a long essay on the Ranters, the ornery radicals who confronted the state and repudiated the moral law in mid-seventeenth-century England. He continues with anecdotes about Supreme Court justices anda highlight of the booka fascinating behind-the-scenes view of the deliberation over the Pulitzer Prizes. His chronicle of a long debate with Harvard University Press over the publication of his book on blasphemy is eye-opening and confounding. He concludes with essays on the origins of the Fourth Amendment; on the critics of his prize-winning study of the Fifth Amendment; and on Lemuel Shaw, chief justice of Massachusetts from 1830 to 1860, whom Mr. Levy calls America's greatest magistrate. Together these essays are continuing proof of Mr. Levy's unmatched powers in producing readable and important scholarship.

Reviews

America's foremost historian of law. * The Philadelphia Inquirer *
This book will cause even those who disagree with his conclusions to carefully rethink their positions. * Los Angeles Times *
A master of constitutional disputes. -- Louis Fisher
Levy is not only the best historian of the American Constitution...but he is also one of the strongest and wisest of those in this generation. -- Eugene V. Rostow
One of the clearest and most eloquent liberal interpreters of law. * The New York Times *

Author Bio

Leonard W. Levy, whose Origins of the Fifth Amendment won the Pulitzer Prize in history, is formerly Earl Warren Professor of Constitutional History at Brandeis University and Andrew W. Mellon All-Claremont Professor of Humanities and History at the Claremont Graduate School. His other writings, many of which have also won awards, include The Palladium of Justice, Blasphemy, The Establishment Clause, Freedom of the Press from Zenger to Jefferson, Original Intent and the Framers' Constitution, and Jefferson and Civil Liberties. He lives in Ashland, Oregon.