Books

It is a truism that the United States allows greater freedom of speech and freedom of thought than any other nation in history. Yet thousands of citizens, maybe more, have been persecuted and prosecuted for expressing themselves in print or verbally.

So, it seems legitimate to ask, is the truism true?

Mostly true, says Anthony Lewis, perhaps the most talented and experienced journalist in the country who writes about law.

In an earlier book, Make No Law: The Sullivan Case and the First Amendment, Mr. Lewis, a former New York Times journalist, provided a relatively narrow look at freedom of expression through the lens of one case that reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

In his new book, Mr. Lewis goes broad instead of deep, taking a few pages or a chapter each to examine case after case explicating the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, an amendment stating "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press... ."

The book probably contains nothing new for an experienced First Amendment advocate. Rather, it serves as a primer to First Amendment law. 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.

Some of the book is straightforward chronological history and contemporary analysis, addressing how the United States citizenry ended up with a First Amendment; how Congress, the president and the courts have alternately expanded and contracted the freedoms promised within it; and whether during an era of anti-terrorist vigilance the freedoms will atrophy permanently.

Those passages sometimes seem a bit textbook-ish. It is easy to imagine Mr. Lewis standing at a lectern in a Harvard University auditorium and reading them to assembled students in a required course. Indeed, he has taught at Harvard Law School.

The remainder of the book, highlighting case studies in a pleasing anecdotal manner, is not at all textbook-ish. Mr. Lewis features the women and men whose often seemingly mundane words and actions unexpectedly spawn litigation that grips the populace. In an unforgettable manner, Mr. Lewis explains the backgrounds and philosophies of judges who sometimes bow to repressive tendencies and punish those who speak out, and other times protect unpopular but important words, thoughts and actions.

Although he is rightly alarmed about contemporary court cases that quite likely will curtail freedom of expression, he refuses to shed his wonderment at how well First Amendment protections often work. He also refuses to surrender his optimism that, eventually, freedom of expression will survive even the most oppressive measures.

Steve Weinberg is a journalist in Columbia, Mo. His next book, Taking on the Trust, will be published in March.

Tales of the First Amendment

Anthony Lewis

(Basic Books, $25)

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