General.

NONFICTION

****

Freedom for the Thought We Hate

A Biography of the First Amendment

By Anthony Lewis

Congress shall make no law ...

It would be hard to find a better writer to introduce the First Amendment than Anthony Lewis. A constitutional law expert, civil liberties advocate, and legal affairs writer, he is best known for his accounts of pivotal Supreme Court cases, including Gideon's Trumpet (1964), about how Americans gained the right to an attorney regardless of ability of pay. In Freedom for the Thought We Hate, the former New York Times columnist and Pulitzer Prize winner takes a broader view, telling the story of the First Amendment as it has developed in American courts (the first free-speech case to refer to the First Amendment was heard in 1919). While his book is not a comprehensive history of the idea of free speech, Lewis covers the most important cases and ponders the debates about what the words of the First Amendment actually mean to our democracy. He makes points that will draw cheers from civil libertarians and a few that will surprise them as well.

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Basic Books. 221 pages. $25. ISBN: 0465039173

Hartford Courant *****

"Anthony Lewis recounts dozens of landmark court cases while eloquently conveying the simple majesty and importance of the First Amendment in this splendid account, which ought to be required reading in every high school and college." BIll WIllIAMS

Christian Science Monitor ****

"Lewis blends a profound understanding of First Amendment jurisprudence and history with an enjoyable writing style that his readers have long come to admire. In our war-torn era where dissent and open-minded debate have become problematic, Lewis compels us to remember the crucial function free speech serves in our democratic form of government." CHUCK LEDDY

Dallas Morning News ****

"Primers are too often both prim and boring. But in my 40 or so years reading Mr. Lewis' journalism, I have never found him either prim or boring. His vast knowledge and easy writing style make cases I have studied deeply come alive anew." STEVE WEINBERG

Los Angeles Times ****

"[Lewis] knows how to parse a Supreme Court decision. At the same time, he looks behind the printed page to scrutinize the experiences and values of the men and women whose utterances are given the force of law. The result is a short history of the 1st Amendment that is always illuminating and sometimes rollicking." JONATHAN KIRSCH

NY Times Book Review ****

"In the 21st century, the heroic First Amendment tradition may seem like a noble vision from a distant era, in which heroes and villains were easier to identify. ... Anthony Lewis is right to celebrate it." JEFFREY ROSEN

Providence Journal ****

"It's hard to imagine a book about legal history reading like a page-turner, but this book does. ... The questions that have yet to be settled press impatiently against the book's pages, reminding us that the First Amendment continues to shift under our feet even as we read." BETH SCHWARTZAPFEL

CRITICAL SUMMARY

Though Freedom for the Thought We Hate is a book about dissent, the critics spoke with one voice, unanimously praising it. Their reaction is no surprise, since the author is Anthony Lewis, whom the Dallas Morning News called "perhaps the most talented and experienced journalist in the country who writes about law." Every critic praised his engaging writing and his skill in selecting just the right facts to make a slim volume feel packed with relevant information. Reviewers disagreed, however, on the meaning of Lewis's survey for the future of the First Amendment. Jeffrey Rosen, a great legal journalist in his own right, pointed out that most upcoming challenges to American free speech will likely stem from conflicts over the power of corporations and the Internet. These issues, Rosen writes, will need to be settled by Congress, so Lewis's decision to center his account on the Court may be a little misleading. At the same time, Lewis's book reminded most reviewers of the constant need to defend free speech and to exercise it courageously--particularly in wartime.

****

The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw

One Woman's Fight to Save the World's Most Beautiful Bird

By Bruce Barcott

An epic battle for a rare bird.

Sharon Matola arrived in Belize in the 1980s as the assistant to a filmmaker producing a documentary about the Central American rain forest. She fell in love with the country and decided to stay, soon founding a popular zoo and becoming an expert on local wildlife. In 2002, the Belizean government announced its plans for a hydroelectric dam that would flood the Macal Valley, the only known natural habitat of the endangered scarlet macaw. Matola protested the dam, but since she was an American, her opposition was seen as colonial oppression, and she was designated an enemy of the people. Despite venomous criticism and harassment, Matola refused to give up. She enlisted the Natural Resource Defense Council as an ally and appealed her case all the way to the London Privy Council.

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Random House. 313 pages. $26. ISBN: 1400062934

Miami Herald *****

"With a plot so multilayered and dramatic that readers will need to remind themselves it's a true account, the narrative achieves the depth of a case study and the accessible intimacy of a short feature. Throughout, Barcott's relaxed, lucid writing and inventive descriptions ... place readers firmly on the side of Matola and the birds." CHRISTINE THOMAS

NY Times Book Review *****

"No, it doesn't sound thrilling (which is doubtless why the publisher kept the word 'dam' out of the title), but Barcott ... makes it so, mashing up adventure travel, biography and nature writing in a steamy climate of corruption and intrigue." ELIZABETH ROYTE

Entertainment Weekly ****

"This fascinating account of the resulting battle touches upon greed, corruption, and the legacy of colonialism. While the outcome is sobering, there's a glimmer of hope for imperiled species everywhere in feisty irritants like Matola." TIM PURTELL

Seattle Times ****

"A seasoned journalist, Barcott ably handles this wide-ranging, multifaceted story. Employing novelistic scene-setting, pithy detail and crisp dialogue, he covers cumbersome legal hurdles, arcane international legalities and raucous public hearings with the graceful ease of a long-distance runner." TIM MCNUlTY

Washington Post ****

"Barcott's account of the fight that followed is nearly encyclopedic, sometimes to the point of overwhelming the reader with details on the history of dams, the geology of rivers, Caribbean piracy, offshore banking, the complex business of endangered-species listings and kindred and not-so-kindred matters. Every bit of detail counts, however, as his story meanders to its close." GREGORY MCNAMEE

Seattle Post-Intelligencer ***

"Barcott does a good job detailing such a complex story, but the effectiveness of The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw is hampered by a series of inconsistencies. The writer seems to have never met a narrative detour he does not want to take for several pages, sidetrips on such subjects as the history of dams that may be informative but stall the story's drive." JOHN MARSHALL

CRITICAL SUMMARY

Contributing editor to Outside magazine and author Bruce Barcott (The Measure of a Mountain: Beauty and Terror on Mount Rainier [1997]) has constructed a gripping and suspenseful account of one woman's crusade against corrupt foreign governments and multinational corporations to save the habitat of an endangered bird. Barcott's simple and eloquent prose, vivid descriptions, and ability to render the most complicated business deals and legal concepts in clear layman's terms allow him to tame this unwieldy tale, which has unexpected twists and turns. The biggest point of divergence? Most critics found Barcott's many narrative tangents informative, interesting, and even integral to the plot, while others called them tedious and distracting. Though the Chalillo Dam was completed in 2005, Matola's story proves that one person can make a difference. (The jury is still out on the fate of the scarlet macaws.)

****

Pictures at a Revolution

Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood

By Mark Harris

The revolution will be televised.

Oscar night, April 10, 1968. And the nominees for Best Picture are ... In the Heat of the Night, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, The Graduate, Bonnie and Clyde, and Doctor Doolittle. The nod went to In the Heat of the Night, starring Sidney Poitier--the first black winner of the Best Actor award and a talent more marketable and famous at the time than Sean Connery and Steve McQueen--and signaled a sea change in the way Hollywood did business. It was a filmmaking revolution, a moving away from the studio system that had dominated the industry for decades. Recounting in vivid detail the genesis of each film--the four that challenged entrenched notions of what film should be (and had been) as well as Doctor Doolittle, entrenched notions that came to symbolize an outmoded Hollywood on its last legs--Mark Harris holds a mirror to a culture in transition.

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Penguin. 496 pages. $27.95. ISBN: 1594201528

Boston Globe *****