From one of America's most esteemed experts on the First Amendment comes an eloquent essay on the importance of expression and the need for 'activist judges' More than virtually any other nation on earth, Americans enjoy the freedom to say and write what they think. The press can air the secrets of government, the corporate boardroom or the bedroom with little fear of punishment or penalty. Hateful and shocking ideas, political and artistic, are all eligible to be part of the marketplace of ideas. And the reason for this extraordinary freedom is just fourteen words of America's most fundamental legal document: the free expression clauses of the First Amendment to the Constitution. This book tells the story of how free-speech rights were created in five distinct areas: political speech, artistic expression, libel, commercial speech and unusual forms of expression such as t-shirts and campaign spending. In the hands of Pulitzer-prize winning author Anthony Lewis, it's a story of hard choices, heroic (and some less heroic) judges, and fascinating and eccentric defendants who forced the legal system to come face to face with one of America's great founding ideas.