Illusive shadows justice, media, and socially significant American trials

As Chiasson and his contributors illustrate, trials are media events that can have long-reaching significance. They can, and have, changed the way people think, how institutions function, and have shaped public opinions. While this collection on ten trials is about withcraft, slavery, religion, and...

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Bibliographic Details
Other Authors: Chiasson, Lloyd 1947-
Format: Unknown
Language:English
Published: Westport, Conn. Praeger 2003
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Online Access:Click Here to View Status and Holdings.
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020 # # |a 0275974952 (alk. paper)  |q hardback 
020 # # |a 027597507X (pbk. : alk. paper) 
040 # # |a DLC  |d ITMB  |e rda 
041 0 # |a eng 
090 0 0 |a KF220  |b .I438 2003 
245 0 0 |a Illusive shadows  |b justice, media, and socially significant American trials  |c edited by Lloyd Chiasson, Jr 
264 # 1 |a Westport, Conn.  |b Praeger  |c 2003 
300 # # |a xiii, 227 pages  |c 24 cm 
336 # # |a text  |2 rdacontent 
337 # # |a unmediated  |2 rdamedia 
338 # # |a volume  |2 rdacarrier 
504 # # |a Includes bibliographical references (p. [207]-214) and index 
520 # # |a As Chiasson and his contributors illustrate, trials are media events that can have long-reaching significance. They can, and have, changed the way people think, how institutions function, and have shaped public opinions. While this collection on ten trials is about withcraft, slavery, religion, and radicalism, it is, in many ways, the story of America. Trials are the stuff of news. Those rare moments when justice, or a reasonable facsimile, is meted out. And what offers up more high drama, or melodrama, than a highly publicized trial? Most news events enjoy short life spans. They happen; they are reported; they are quickly forgotten. As Chiasson and his contributors make clear, a trial often is a lingering, living thing that builds in tension. It is, every once in a long while, a modern Shakespearean drama with a twist: The audience becomes members of the cast because, every once in a long while, society finds itself the defendant. Trials can have lasting importance beyond how the public perceives them. A trial can have long-reaching significance if it changes the way people think, or how institutions function, or shapes public opinion. Ten such American trials covering a span of 307 years are covered here. In each, the sociological underpinnings of events often has greater significance than either the crime or the trial. The ten trials included are the Salem witch trials, the Amistad trial, the Sioux Indian Uprising trials, the Ed Johnson/Sheriff Shipp trial, the Big Bill Haywood trial, the Ossian Sweet trial, the Clay Shaw trial, the Manuel Noriega trial, and the Matthew Shepard trial. While the book is about ten crimes, the subsequent trials, and the media coverage of each, it is also a book about witchcraft, about religion, slavery, and radicalism. It paints portraits of a racist America, a capitalistic America, an anarchist America. It relates compelling tales of compassion, greed, stupidity, and hate beginning in 17th-century colonial times and ending in present-day America. In many ways, it is the story of America. 
650 # 0 |a Trials  |x Social aspects  |x History  |z United States 
650 # 0 |a Crime  |x Social aspects  |x History  |z United States 
650 # 0 |a Crime and the press  |x History  |z United States 
700 1 # |a Chiasson, Lloyd  |d 1947- 
856 4 0 |z Click Here to View Status and Holdings.  |u https://opac.uitm.edu.my/opac/detailsPage/detailsHome.jsp?tid=356720 
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