March 3, 2014, Oakland, CA—The Independent Institute is pleased to announce that two of our books are the recipients of 2013 PROSE Best Book Awards from the American Association of Publishers. The Power of Habeas Corpus in America: From the King's Prerogative to the War on Terror has won the top Law and Legal Studies Award. Global Crossings: Immigration, Civilization, and America received Honorable Mention in Economics.
The American Publishers Awards for Professional and Scholarly Excellence (PROSE) recognize the very best in professional and scholarly publishing in books, journals, and electronic content. This year's competition for professional and scholarly works was fierce with a record-breaking number of entries—more than ever before in its 38-year history—from more than 60 publishers around the world.
The Power of Habeas Corpus in America by Gilbert I. Collins Fellow Anthony Gregory traces the story of habeas corpus from medieval England to modern America. The right not to be arrested and jailed arbitrarily is widely viewed as central to the Anglo-American legal tradition, a pillar on which our constitutional rights rest. Leading jurists have called the protection of this right "the most effectual protector of the liberty of the subject that any legal system has ever devised." Yet as author Anthony Gregory shows, the Great Writ, as habeas corpus is also known, did not originate as a safeguard against unjust detention but came to play that role after centuries of struggle among English governing bodies over who possessed the authority to detain a particular individual. He further illustrates how today, in post-9/11 America, habeas corpus proceedings reflect the prominence of government power over the principles of liberty.
The highly acclaimed book, Global Crossings, by Senior Fellow Alvaro Vargas Llosa, is the compelling analysis of the current immigration debate, cutting through the tangle of myth, falsehood, and misrepresentation to clearly explain the causes and results of human migration. Contrary to the claims of immigration critics, the patterns of contemporary migration do not differ fundamentally from those of other times.
The paperback of The Power of Habeas Corpus in America will be available in May 2014. To find out more information about these award-winning books and other books published by the Independent Institute, please visit www.independent.org/store.
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