An investigation into how free speech and other civil liberties have been compromised in America by war in six historical periods describes how presidents, Supreme Court justices, and resistors contributed to the administration of civil freedoms, in an account complemented by rare photographs, posters, and historical illustrations. 20,000 first printing. By Geoffrey R. Stone's estimate, America has lived up to the ideals encapsulated in the First Amendment about 80 percent of the time over the course of its history. Perilous Times 's focuses is on the remaining 20 percent, when, during war or civil strife, the better instincts of the public and its leaders have been drowned out by a certain kind of repressive hysteria. Stone, the former dean of law provost at the University of Chicago, identifies six periods of widespread free-speech repression, dating back to the administration of the nation's second president, John Adams, and continuing through the Vietnam era. In between, two of history's greatest presidents, Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt, were involved in constitutionally questionable efforts to suppress dissent. Stone examines these pivotal episodes with a lawyer's attention to detail and precedence and a writer's focus on character and story structure. From Adams's secretary of state, the "grim-faced and single-minded" Timothy Pickering (who scanned the papers daily looking for seditious language) through John Ashcroft on one side, and the cheeky late-18th-century congressman Matthew Lyon and the Yippies of the 1960s on the other, there are plenty of characters enlivening these pages. Given its publication during the War on Terror, Stone's work feels particularly timely and vital. He devotes only a few pages to the post-9/11 environment, crediting George W. Bush for his refusal to scapegoat Muslims in the immediate aftermath of the attack, but castigating his administration for "opportunistic and excessive" actions centering around the Patriot Act. One wonders if Stone will some day be forced to update Perilous Times with a full chapter on the early 21st century. --Steven Stolder Stone's history examines America's tendency in wartime to compromise First Amendment rights in the name of national security. During the Civil War, a former congressman, Clement Vallandigham, was imprisoned and nearly executed for objecting to the conflict as "wicked, cruel, and unnecessary" in the First World War, the anarchist Mollie Steimer was sentenced to fifteen years for calling capitalism the "only one enemy of the workers of the world." Each of these measures seemed essential to victory at the time; later, however, pardons were issued. We may one day feel the same about Guantánamo and the Patriot Act, but not all wrongs are immediately remedied. In 1971, Attorney General John Mitchell tried to use the contentious Espionage Act of 1917 (which, largely forgotten, had never been revoked) to prevent the publication of the Pentagon Papers. It is still law today. Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker Most critics found new legal and critical insight in Stone’s examination of the First Amendment and how its principles have been compromised during wartime. But some readers may find Stone’s comprehensive, footnote-filled tome too scholarly for pleasurable reading. At least one reviewer—Harvard Law School Professor and civil libertarian Alan Dershowitz—believes Stone "exaggerates the role of war in the history of American censorship." ( Boston Globe ) But nobody questions the author’s credentials or the importance and timeliness of his topic. That’s undoubtedly why several publications— The New York Times Book Review , The Washington Post , The Los Angeles Times , and The Christian Science Monitor —included Perilous Times on their lists of notable books of 2004. Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. With growing concerns about national security and free speech as the nation reacts to terrorist threats, this book is particularly timely. With an engaging mixture of history and law, Stone, a law professor, identifies six periods when U.S. government has curtailed free-speech rights: on the verge of war with France, when Congress enacted the Sedition Act of 1789; during the Civil War, when the writ of habeas corpus was suspended; during World War I, when the government prosecuted opponents of the war and the draft; during World War II, when Japanese were interned; during the cold war and the virulent campaigns against Communists; and in the 1960s and 1970s, when the government sought to suppress civil disobedience and demonstrations against the Vietnam War. Stone devotes a section of the book to each period, highlighting the actions of presidents from John Adams to Richard Nixon; Supreme Court justices; and dissenters, including Emma Goldman, Lillian Hellman, and Daniel Ellsberg. Stone cautions that we as a nation have "an unfortunate history of overreacting to the perceived dangers of wartime." Vernon Ford C