This remarkable book shines a fierce light on the current state of
liberty and shows how longstanding restraints against tyranny--and the
rights of habeas corpus, trial by jury, and due process of law, and the
prohibition of torture--are being abridged. In providing a sweeping
history of Magna Carta, the source of these protections since 1215, this
powerful book demonstrates how these ancient rights are repeatedly laid
aside when the greed of privatization, the lust for power, and the
ambition of empire seize a state. Peter Linebaugh draws on primary
sources to construct a wholly original history of the Great Charter and
its scarcely-known companion, the Charter of the Forest, which was
created at the same time to protect the subsistence rights of the poor.