The subject of this year's Dewey Lecture is the political morality and wisdom of putting political leaders on trial after we have endured their leadership (and other nations, perhaps, have endured their crimes). Political trials have a long history-and the judgments we make of their judgments are highly contested. Professor Walzer will try to suggest a comparative politics of political trials; they have a very different character, and very different purposes, in different national and international settings. And, like all trials, their justice and wisdom hang on their character and purpose.

Michael Walzer is Professor Emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, New Jersey.