This is, by any standards, an astonishing little book. It should be required reading for every lawyer and for every person who is concerned to see *justice* done in the courtroom.

Mack O'Barr is an anthropologist. His unusual perspective on the behavior of lawyers and the perceived credibility of witnesses offers startling insight into jury decision making. His book is both fascinating and deeply depressing by turns. His empirical studies show that those citizens most in need of legal redress come to the courtroom two strikes down. His account offers a frightening new dimension to Marc Galanter's "Why the 'Haves' Come Out Ahead" and emphasises the obstacles faced by ther disadvantaged when they seek to invoke the law in their aid.

The book explains why many of the forensic techniques discovered empirically and regularly deployed by lawyers work. I wish I had known of this book when I was a criminal advocate - it would have allowed me to cross-examine witnesses more effectively.

Although the book is a straight forward account of a piece of academic research, it is readable and engaging. The only negative comment I would make is that there is little discussion of the implications of the research findings - perhaps that might be better left to John Conley who has subsequently collaborated closely with O'Barr.

This book deserves to be much better known than it is.

I like to give copies of this book as presents to young children - I only wish it were in hard back as mine was.

Since Amazon insists on posting my review of Rudd's translation to Braund's Cambridge text, I must admit that I have not used Braund's text. The series, though, is consistently good, and Braund is a natural choice to comment on the Satires. I am confident from reading her other scholarship on Juvenal that her commentary is educated, her viewpoint modern, and her commentary very helpful.

Tyrrell's major handicap is that he is trying to move from the realm of journalistic editorship to the realm of novel-writing, and simply doesn't have the skills for it. Simply put, Mark Twain he isn't. When I read a novel, I expect an in-depth study of the characters and the situation. I expect to be told not just _what_ the characters do, but _why_ they do it. And the "why" inevitably goes much deeper than "that Bill Clinton may be a scumbag, but he's _our_ scumbag," and is definitely more complicated than that.

But instead of depth of characterization and background, I get Barney Frank and Charles Schumer acting like Rush Limbaugh's favorite caricatures of them. I also get Sonny Bono behaving as though he were once again doing one of his television shows, instead of participating in arguably the most _serious business_ of all our lives--and again, with no explanation of Sonny's behavior. And I get thirteen Democratic "crossover Senators" who make the difference between "Guilty" and "Not Guilty" in the Senate--but with no, or scant, explanation of _why_ they cross over. Compare Tyrrell's Frank and Schumer with Twain's "King and Duke," and compare Tyrrell's Sonny Bono to Twain's Tom Sawyer, and you'll see what I mean.

I would certainly hope that the _real_ Bob Barr (who has just filed an impeachment resolution in the House in real life), the _real_ Henry Hyde, and the _real_ Orrin Hatch and Arlen Specter would make a better effort than this to (a) gather intelligence on the other side, and (b) make a coherent plan to win people over, through appeals to emotions either noble or ignoble. Tyrrell's book is not a plan. It is a wish. A wish that I myself will fully acknowledge sharing, but a wish nonetheless. And again, as a novel, it is far too pedestrian ever to take itself, or be taken, seriously.

The trouble is that I think Bill Clinton _should_ be impeached, and for the reasons that Tyrrell states, and for other actions and policies of his that are tantamount to treason. But by the time the professional book reviewers--which is to say, those who actually write novels for a living--get through with this book, they'll start such a drumbeat against it that the American people will lose its message in their disappointment in the finished work. And that's too bad for the country.