This volume brings together eight US authors breaking new ground with multidisciplinary perspectives and an exciting range of real-life topics concerning the central question, ‘What is civil liberty?’ The contributions here dive into freedom of speech, religious freedom, freedom of assembly, and much more, examining how and why marginalized groups such as African Americans, women, and queers used civil liberties in their struggle for equality. Topics covered in this volume range from considering how we can moderate the corrupting influences of luxury and consumerism promoted by private property rights to the dilemma of teaching politically controversial civil liberty topics and the role of free speech in the classroom. The book is a must-read for anyone interested in civil liberty, whether an expert, novice, or in-between.

The impassioned memoirs from one of America's leading civil liberties attorneys of the 20th century. After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1956, Temple worked for Thurgood Marshall at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund until he was drafted into the United States Army. A critical formative experience was Temple's August 1964 trip to St. Augustine, Florida with the New York City Lawyers Constitutional Defense Fund, where he worked with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and others to ensure compliance with the newly enacted 1964 Civil Rights Act. He died in 2011 a national hero.

An impassioned, incisive look at the violations of civil liberties in the United States that have accelerated over the past decade—and their direct impact on our lives. How have our rights to privacy and justice been undermined? What exactly have we lost? Pulitzer Prize–winner David K. Shipler searches for the answers to these questions by traveling the midnight streets of dangerous neighborhoods with police, listening to traumatized victims of secret surveillance, and digging into dubious terrorism prosecutions. The law comes to life in these pages, where the compelling stories of individual men and women illuminate the broad array of government’s powers to intrude into personal lives. Examining the historical expansion and contraction of fundamental liberties in America, this is the account of what has been taken—and of how much we stand to regain by protesting the departures from the Bill of Rights. And, in Shipler’s hands, each person’s experience serves as a powerful incitement for a retrieval of these precious rights.