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It is rarely possible to write biographies of lay people who lived in the Middles Ages. While accounts of clerical, royal, and military life are many, the wider populace has remained in relative obscurity. In Clean Hands and Rough Justice: An Investigating Magistrate in Renaissance Italy, David S. Chambers and Trevor Dean present an extraordinary and previously unknown character from Renaissance Italy, Beltramino Cusadri (ca. 1425-1500). This judge was known as the "terrible commissioner," and he spent most of his professional life acting as criminal investigator and legal adviser to two princely dynasties -- the Gonzaga of Mantua and the Este of Ferrara. The authors investigate and compare the judicial institutions and social conditions in which Beltramino Cusadri worked, the criminal cases that he investigated, and his successes and failures. Their combined presentation of the figure and mentality of Cusadri amounts to something unprecedented in Italian Renaissance historiography: the portrait of a professional man, employed to combat rising crime, but accused of corruption and tyranny by the entrenched interests that he faced. The book follows the major phases of Beltramino's career and offers a broader exploration of the legal history of Renaissance Italy. In his long life Beltramino Cusadri wrote hundreds of letters to his employers and it is upon these letters that this book is based. These letters with their wry, colorfully worded expressions are liberally quoted and provide unique insight into the career, activity, and attitudes of a major Renaissance bureaucrat. The letters of his employers in return are also drawn upon to examine a variety of themes, from the progress of law-making and the pattern of criminality, to the problems of policing and the changing forms of punishment. These provide an extraordinarily vivid picture of face-to-face realities that make an important contribution to the history of crime, law, policing, and punishment.

The story of NAACP’s sole female attorney. She shaped civil rights history as lead strategist and litigator from 1946–1964, arguing landmark desegregation cases and defending Martin Luther King Jr. and countless freedom fighters.

Constance Baker Motley was an African American woman; the daughter of immigrants from Nevis, British West Indies; a wife; and a mother who became a pioneer and trailblazer in the legal profession. She broke down barriers, overcame gender constraints, and operated outside the boundaries placed on black women by society and the civil rights movement. In Constance Baker Motley: One Woman’s Fight for Civil Rights and Equal Justice under Law, Gary L. Ford Jr. explores the key role Motley played in the legal fight to desegregate public schools as well as colleges, universities, housing, transportation, lunch counters, museums, libraries, parks, and other public accommodations.
 
The only female attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., Motley was also the only woman who argued desegregation cases in court during much of the civil rights movement. From 1946 through 1964, she was a key litigator and legal strategist for landmark civil rights cases including the Montgomery Bus Boycott and represented Martin Luther King Jr. as well as other protesters arrested and jailed as a result of their participation in sit-ins, marches, and freedom rides.
 
Motley was a leader who exhibited a leadership style that reflected her personality traits, skills, and strengths. She was a visionary who formed alliances and inspired local counsel to work with her to achieve the goals of the civil rights movement. As a leader and agent of change, she was committed to the cause of justice and she performed important work in the trenches in the South and behind the scene in courts that helped make the civil rights movement successful.

"Highly recommended."
—CHOICE