The big trial : law as public spectacle

Author / Creator

Friedman, Lawrence M. (Lawrence Meir), 1930- author

Available as

Online

Summary

The trial of O.J. Simpson was a sensation, avidly followed by millions of people, but it was also, in a sense, nothing new. One hundred years earlier the Lizzie Borden trial had held the nation in ...

The trial of O.J. Simpson was a sensation, avidly followed by millions of people, but it was also, in a sense, nothing new. One hundred years earlier the Lizzie Borden trial had held the nation in thrall. The names (and the crimes) may change, but the appeal is enduring-and why this is, how it works, and what it means are what Lawrence Friedman investigates in The Big Trial. What is it about these cases that captures the public imagination? Are the ""headline trials"" of our period different from those of a century or two ago? And what do we learn from them, about the nature of our society, pa.

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