Вручение 2005 г.
Страна: США
Дата проведения: 2005 г.
Премия в области американской исторической художественной литературы
Лауреат
Питер Донахью
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Peter Donahue’s debut novel Madison House chronicles turn-of-the-century Seattle’s explosive transformation from frontier outpost to major metropolis. Maddie Ingram, owner of Madison House, and her quirky and endearing boarders find their lives inextricably linked when the city decides to re-grade Denny Hill and the fate of Madison House hangs in the balance. Clyde Hunssler, Maddie’s albino handyman and furtive love interest; James Colter, a muckraking black journalist who owns and publishes the Seattle Sentry newspaper; and Chiridah Simpson, an aspiring stage actress forced into prostitution and morphine addiction while working in the city’s corrupt vaudeville theater, all call Madison House home. Had E.L. Doctorow and Charles Dickens met on the streets of Seattle, they couldn’t have created a better book.
Премия в области американской юридической истории или биографии
Лауреат
Richard J. Ellis
0.0
For over one hundred years, it has been deeply ingrained in American culture. Saluting the flag in public schools began as part of a national effort to Americanize immigrants, its final six words imbuing it with universal hope and breathtaking power. Now Richard Ellis unfurls the fascinating history of the Pledge of Allegiance and of the debates and controversies that have sometimes surrounded it.
For anyone who has ever recited those thirty-one words, To the Flag provides an unprecedented historical perspective on recent challenges to the Pledge. As engaging as it is informative, it traces the story from the Pledge's composition by Francis Bellamy in 1892 up to the Supreme Court's action in 2004 regarding atheist Michael Newdow's objection to the words under God. Ellis is especially good at highlighting aspects of this story that might not be familiar to most readers: the schoolhouse flag movement, the codification of the Pledge at the First National Flag Conference in 1923, changing styles of salute, and the uses of the Pledge to quell public concerns over sundry strains of radicalism.
Created against the backdrop of rapid immigration, the Pledge has continued for over a century to be injected into American politics at times of heightened anxiety over the meaning of our national identity. Ellis analyzes the text of the Pledge to tell how the very words indivisible and allegiance were intended to invoke Civil War sentiments-and how with liberty and justice for all forms a capsule expression of the American creed. He also examines the introduction of under God as an anti-Communist declaration in the 1950s, demonstrating that the phrase is not mere ceremonial Deism but rather a profound expression of what has been called America's civil religion.
The Pledge has inspired millions but has also been used to promote conformity and silence dissent-indeed its daily recitation in schools and legislatures tells us as much about our anxieties as a nation as it does about our highest ideals. Ellis reveals how, for over a century, those who have been most fearful about threats to our national identity have often been most insistent on the importance of patriotic rituals. Indeed, by addressing this inescapable paradox of our civic life, Ellis opens a new and unexpected window on the American soul.
Премия в области американской юридической истории или биографии (почётное упоминание)
John W. Johnson
0.0
Americans value privacy as one of their most cherished rights, yet the word privacy isn't even mentioned in the U.S. Constitution. It took the Supreme Court's ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) to bestow constitutional protection upon this right. That remains one of the Court's most hotly debated rulings and led directly to an even more controversial decision in Roe v. Wade (1973). John Johnson's masterly critique of Griswold--which observes its 40th anniversary on June 7, 2005--reminds us once again of its crucial impact on both American law and society.
Johnson explores Griswold's origins in a challenge to Connecticut's 1879 anti-contraception law, provides a detailed narrative of its progress, examines the unfolding of the newly secured right of privacy up to recent controversies over same-sex relations, and grounds the story in two key contexts: the struggle within one state to establish the right to birth control and the national debate over the right of privacy. He also provides important insights into the Supreme Court decision in Poe v. Ullman (1961), which rejected challenges to the Connecticut's law and was itself immediately challenged. In response to Poe, Planned Parenthood opened a clinic in New Haven to dispense birth control advice and devices to married women. Ten days later, a local prosecutor shut the clinic down and indicted executive director Estelle Griswold and her medical director, C. Lee Buxton.
Tracing the progress of Griswold's case, Johnson clarifies how privacy or the right to be let alone became a judicially constructed right. In one of the most idiosyncratic opinions in the Court's history, Justice William O. Douglas ruled that emanations from five constitutional amendments afforded protection to the right of privacy, while several other justices proposed competing rationales in support. As he unravels this fascinating tale, Johnson reveals a multifaceted decision that was not in fact the doctrinal novelty that many scholars have argued.
For two generations, Griswold has functioned as the legal basis for judicial rulings involving issues of sexual intimacy, reproductive rights, and family life. Even today, it continues to set the agenda for debates about privacy in American life and about how the Constitution itself should be interpreted. Johnson's deft and incisive analysis of the case will interest anyone concerned about the nature, scope, and future of privacy in America.
