Geoffrey Stone to receive Robert F. Kennedy Award for Perilous Times
Geoffrey Stone, the Harry Kalven, Jr. Distinguished Service Professor in the Law School, will receive the Robert F. Kennedy Award for his book, "Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism."
On May 24th at a Washington banquet, Ethel Kennedy will present Stone with the award, given by the RFK memorial, which annually honors the book that "most faithfully and forcefully reflects Robert Kennedy's purposes - his concern for the poor and the powerless, his struggle for honest and even-handed justice, his conviction that a decent society must assure all young people a fair chance, and his faith that a free democracy can act to remedy disparities of power and opportunity."
Selected as a finalist by the Los Angeles Times for its 2004 Book Prizes, "Perilous Times" has also been named on the "best book of the year" lists of the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and Christian Science Monitor.
A study of civil liberties in time of national emergency, the book explores six pivotal national emergencies in the history of the United States: the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798, the Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Cold War, and the Vietnam War.