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From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act: A History of the Fight for Free Speech in America. By Christopher M. Finan. Boston: Beacon Press, 2007; pp ix + 348. $25.95 cloth; $18.00 paper.
From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act offers a grassroots history of the fight for freedom of speech as told by one of the struggle's active participants, Christopher M. Finan, Chair of the National Coalition Against Censorship, President of the American Booksellers' Foundation for Freedom of Expression, and Trustee of the Freedom to Read Foundation. Admittedly inspired by Judge Learned Hand's famous 1944 proclamation that "liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it," Finan draws on a wealth of primary and secondary sources to argue throughout the book that "free speech depends on the courage of the individuals who fight for their rights" (305). The book should be of great interest to scholars of public communication as a corrective of traditional studies of the freedom of expression that tend to frame the evolution of First Amendment jurisprudence as the result of forward-thinking Supreme Court Justices. Without downplaying the role of the Supreme Court, Finan demonstrates the singular importance of organizing, strategy, and struggle in the liberalization of cultural attitudes, policy, and opinions of the Court pertaining to the...