The Reading Room

American Slavery, American Freedom, a Reading Room essay

On American Slavery, American Freedom

Michael Fowler

Edmund Morgan posed the central paradox of American history in his title and then spent a book explaining it.

On American Slavery, American Freedom

Michael Fowler

Edmund Morgan posed the central paradox of American history in his title and then spent a book explaining it.

The Common Law, a Reading Room essay

On The Common Law

Michael Fowler

The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience. With that famous opening, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. announced, in 1881, a revolution in how Americans understood...

On The Common Law

Michael Fowler

The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience. With that famous opening, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. announced, in 1881, a revolution in how Americans understood...

Gideon's Trumpet, a Reading Room essay

On Gideon's Trumpet

Michael Fowler

A poor man named Clarence Earl Gideon, convicted of a petty crime in Florida and forced to defend himself because he could not afford a lawyer, sat in his prison...

On Gideon's Trumpet

Michael Fowler

A poor man named Clarence Earl Gideon, convicted of a petty crime in Florida and forced to defend himself because he could not afford a lawyer, sat in his prison...

Make No Law, a Reading Room essay

On Make No Law

Michael Fowler

Anthony Lewis returned to the Supreme Court in Make No Law, published in 1991, to tell the story of the case that, more than any other, made the modern freedom...

On Make No Law

Michael Fowler

Anthony Lewis returned to the Supreme Court in Make No Law, published in 1991, to tell the story of the case that, more than any other, made the modern freedom...

Democracy and Distrust, a Reading Room essay

On Democracy and Distrust

Michael Fowler

John Hart Ely set out to solve the deepest puzzle in American constitutional law, and Democracy and Distrust, published in 1980, offers the most influential answer of its era.

On Democracy and Distrust

Michael Fowler

John Hart Ely set out to solve the deepest puzzle in American constitutional law, and Democracy and Distrust, published in 1980, offers the most influential answer of its era.