Stone, Geoffrey R, Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime.

STONE, Geoffrey R, Perilous times; free speech in wartime. Norton. 730p. illus, notes. index, c2004. 0-393-32745-0. $17.95. A

It is no secret that American civil liberties have always suffered during time of war or great national stress. Any secondary pupil who has endured freshman history lectures about the Alien and Sedition Acts should be well aware of the basic dichotomy between full civil rights in times of national emergency versus the most effective ways to guarantee their long-term survival. The argument has raged during every war, and any future consensus will survive only until the next war comes along.

Given the present-day firestorm about the issue, the question more than ever demands a reasoned and honest national debate. With exquisite timing, law professor and legal scholar Geoffrey Stone has presented a scholarly review of this perennial problem. Going back to the early Republic, he identifies each flashpoint in American history when the Bill of Rights has been threatened, and analyzes the arguments of each, pro and con. From the Sedition Act and Lincoln's initial suspension of habeas corpus, the author passes systematically all the way through the turbulent Vietnam Era and into the present Age of Terror. His section on the WW I period is especially interesting. Not unnaturally, Professor Stone himself has decided views on the question of civil liberties and wartime expediency, but it would be difficult to claim that the book is biased one way or another. The major problem with the book is that it deals with a serious political topic, written for serious adult readers. Advanced YAs, of course, will profit by dipping into it, but its chief classroom value would be as background reading for teachers. For this, it is especially well suited. Raymond Puffer, Ph.D., Historian, Edwards AFB, Lancaster, CA