Book description
In an extraordinary history of the criminal trial, Sadakat Kadri shows
with wit, legal insight and a travel writer's eye for detail, how the
irrationality of the past lives on in the legal systems of the present.
A bold and brilliant debut from a prize-winning writer.
'The Trial' spans a vast distance in time, opening in the dread silence
of the Egyptian Hall of the Dead and ending with the melodramas and
hubbub of the 21st-century trial circus. Reconciliation and vengeance,
secrecy and spectacle, superstition and reason all intertwine
continually. The book crosses from the marbled courtrooms of Athens
through the ordeal pits of Anglo-Saxon England, past the torture
chambers of the Inquisition to the judicial theatres of 17th-century
Salem, and from 1930s Moscow and post-war Nuremberg to the virtual
courtrooms of modern Hollywood.
Kadri shows throughout how the trial has always been concerned with
doing more than guaranteeing fairness and holding human beings to
account for their deliberate crimes. He recounts how insentient and
irrational defendants from caterpillars to corpses were once summonsed
to court, before being exiled for their failure to attend or sentenced
to die again - and argues that the same urge to punish lives on in
today's trials of children and the mentally ill. But although Justice's
sword has always been double-edged - as ready to destroy a community's
enemies as to defend its dreams of due process - the judicial contest
also operates to enshrine some of the western world's most cherished
values. The show trials of Stalin's Soviet Union were shams, but
Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib are a reminder that a lack of a trial is
equally unjust, and at a time when our constitutional landscape seems to
be melting away, an appreciation of the criminal courtroom's history is
more necessary than ever. As the Labour government launches an almost
annual attempt to truncate trial by jury, and as authorities on both
sides of the Atlantic are indefinitely detaining people in the name of
an endless war on terror, 'The Trial' could hardly be more timely.
Note that it has not been possible to include the same picture content
that appeared in the original print version. 'He tells a good story,
deftly managing to mix anecdote and serious analysis. An impressive
performance.' The Times
'A mine of information and an entertaining read, written with wit and
style.' Sunday Telegraph
'An amusing and colourful and a deeply thoughtful book of contemporary
relevance…a real achievement.' Guardian
'An interesting and timely book.' Observer
'You don't have to agree with Kadri's political views to find his
history of the trial engaging stuff.' Daily Telegraph Sadakat Kadri
was born in 1964 and studied history and law at Cambridge and Harvard
universities. As well as being a member of the New York Bar and a tenant
at London's Doughty Street Chambers, he is a travel writer whose Cadogan
Guide to Prague was shortlisted for the Thomas Cook award and who won
the Shiva Naipaul/Spectator Prize in 1998. As a barrister, he has
represented several prisoners on death row in the Carribean, prosecuted
one African dictator and challenged the legality of a military
dictatorship in Fiji. He lived in Manhattan while writing the book,
arriving shortly before 11 September 2001, but now lives in London.
