Bücher von Leonard W. Levy

Leonard Levy's classic work examines the circumstances that led to the writing of the establishment clause of the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...." He argues that, contrary to popular belief, the framers of the Constitution intended to prohibit government aid to religion even on an impartial basis

What did "freedom of the press" really mean to the framers of the First Amendment and their contemporaries? This masterful book by a Pulitzer Prize-winning constitutional historian answers that question. In Emergence of a Free Press (a greatly revised and enlarged edition of his landmark Legacy of Suppression), Leonard W. Levy argues that the First Amendment was not designed to be the bulwark of a free press that many thought, nor had the amendment's framers intended to overturn the common law of seditious libel that was the principal means of stifling political dissent. Yet he notes how robust and rambunctious the early press was, and he takes that paradox into account in tracing the succession of cases and reforms that figured in the genesis of a free press. Mr. Levy's brilliant account offers a new generation of readers a penetrating look into the origins of one of America's most cherished freedoms.

The laws of forfeiture dictate that the government may confiscate property associated with the commission of a crime. In this study, the author traces the development and implementation of forfeiture and contends that it is a questionable practice, often abused, which undermines civil society.

Traces the varied meanings of blasphemy throughout Western law. Leonard Levy argues that while past sanctions against the crime have inhibited all manner of cultural, political, scientific, and literary expression, we also pay a price for our extraordinary expansion of the scope of permissible speech. We have become, he charges, not only a free society but one that is "numb" to outrage.