| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.4

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Robert A. Ferguson. The Trial in American Life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2007 Pp. xiii, 400. $29.00.
Public criminal trials have been a feature of the American legal and cultural landscape since the founding of the republic. They can shape our social perceptions and influence our politics. More so than elsewhere, in the United States, highly publicized trials inspire popular novels, plays, and movies. The media has always focused on the criminal trials of celebrity defendants, who either are already famous or become so because of their alleged crimes. The public, adversarial nature of the Anglo-American legal system invites controversy and creates drama. In his new book, Robert A. Ferguson expertly analyzes the cultural impact of American criminal trials.	1
Ferguson offers four framing essays, two at the beginning and two at the end, bracketing case studies of five famous American trials from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. All nine chapters could stand alone, but they also work well together. The first chapter discusses the public nature of American trials and how litigators inevitably engage in the type of storytelling that creates persuasive narratives for the jury and the public alike. The second chapter presents the stage-like qualities of the courtroom and the actor-like roles of the various participants. Following highly critical case studies of the sensational trials of Aaron Burr, John Brown, Mary Surratt, the Haymarket defendants, and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Ferguson concludes with chapters critiquing the role of television in modern criminal trials and proposing C-SPAN–style coverage of such events. "Law is the democratic republic in this moment," Ferguson concludes. "An informed citizenry should not be denied the full effect of its voices whether in prior conflict or the moment of decision" (p. 336).	. . .

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