Reviews

Several of the following reviews of Sadakat Kadri’s The Trial are available in full via a link at the bottom of this page. 

 

“traces the development of the criminal trial . . . with verve, intelligence, humour and clarity . . . An impressive performance” – The Times (London)

 

“Kadri has a story-teller’s eye for lively detail” – Newsweek

 

“amusing, colourful and anecdotal . . . a real achievement” – The Guardian

 

“a colorful work of popular history . . . pleasurable and instructive” – Wall Street Journal

 

“The Trial is a sweeping triumph, a delight for anyone interested in law and justice” – Baltimore Sun

 

“an imaginative cornucopia of legal history, displayed by a deft and engaging writer” – The Washington Lawyer

 

“philosophical and witty” – The Boston Globe

 

“Kadri’s wide historical lens allows him to show how the flaws of the past stubbornly crop up in the present” - The Washington Post

 

“a timely book. Kadri makes clear how long it has taken to arrive at this supposedly high point in judicial history and consequently fires a warning shot at those who seek to erode hard-won traditions” - The Observer (London)

 

“sinewy and knowledgable . . . [a] serious and worthwhile contribution to legal literature” – The London Review of Books

 

“ambitious . . . witty . . . ingenious . . . The Trial presents us with a cautionary tale of judicial fallibility, while championing the efforts of those who campaign tirelessly to defend the innocent” - Irish Times

 

“Entertaining, sociologically perceptive, and highly recommended” - Booklist

 

“a superb narrative history . . . riveting and lucid” - Library Journal

 

“a gripping subject, fluid writing, witty prose, wonderful anecdotes, and an authoritative style . . . a magnificent book” - Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries 

 

“compelling” – The Times Literary Supplement

 

“truly remarkable . . . brilliant” – The Buffalo News

 

“well documented and highly readable . . . [Sadakat Kadri] demonstrate[s] both analytical skill and an extraordinary depth of understanding” – New York Law Journal

 

“Possibly the most engaging book of legal history ever written” - Good Book Guide

 

“Sadakat Kadri [has] a snappy, engaging prose style . . . a superb lay introduction to legal proceedings” – Charleston Post and Courier

 

“a lively style that keeps the subject entertaining even when it is grim” - San Antonio Express-News

 

“a comprehensive and thought-provoking historical assessment of the foundation of our nation’s system of criminal justice” - The News & Observer (Raleigh)

 

“combin[es] a journalist’s flair for the sensational with a scholar’s attention to detail . . . an eminently thoughtful and readable book for lawyer and non-lawyer tonight” - The Advocate (Vancouver)

 

For links to these reviews, along with extracts and links to trial-related websites please click here. Anyone who wants to buy either the U.S. hardback or U.K. paperback edition of The Trial from Amazon can do so by clicking on the appropriate cover image above. Further information on Sadakat Kadri can be found here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

For as long as accuser and accused have faced each other in public, criminal trials have been establishing more than who did what to whom, and in The Trial: A History, from Socrates to O.J. Simpson, Sadakat Kadri explores just what humanity has spent the last four thousand years trying to prove. Published by HarperCollins in the United Kingdom and Random House in the United States, The Trial situates today’s judicial circuses and moral panics squarely within the history of fear, superstition and idealism that brought them into being.

 

 

 

The Trial was shortlisted by the U.K. Crime Writers Association for its Gold Dagger Award for Non-Fiction in 2005, and Sadakat Kadri’s book was one of three included in the almanac of exemplary legal writing published by the Green Bag law journal in January 2006. Translation rights have recently been sold to publishers in China, Taiwan, and Brazil.