Reviews

The Magna Carta Manifesto: Liberties and Commons for All by Peter Linebaugh

kevin_carson's review against another edition

4.0

The book was fairly rambling and didn't seem to have much in the way of a coherent thesis, but still an engaging read with a lot of informative or entertaining anecdotes, historical digressions etc.

resolutereader's review

3.0

Peter Linebaugh's sweeping history of Magna Carta, one of the founding documents of law couldn't come at a better time. This ancient text, with its limits on tyranny, its prohibition of torture, its securing of the right to trial by jury and of course, habeas corpus, has never been needed so much. Under the guise of the war on terror, many governments have sought to undermine these ancient rights and in the first instance Linebaugh's book is a rallying cry to defend them. It is with a only a limited irony that the author can quote a legal expert recently saying "If anyone had told me 20 years ago that fighting for the rights in Magna Carta or the rule of law would be seen as revolutionary behaviour, I would have laughed."

Full review: http://resolutereader.blogspot.co.uk/2009/06/peter-linebaugh-magna-carta-manifesto.html