Review
time spent on Law in a Time of Crisis is time spent in the company of a brilliant mind considering interesting things ... any person of broadly liberal instinct will find much in this enjoyable book to agree with and much that can improve one's way of thinking and of making an argument -- Daniel Finkelstein ― the Times
Sumption has always been more than just a lawyer. For many years he was the brilliant QC and then Supreme Court justice who somehow found time on the side to write a definitive, multivolume history of the Hundred Years War: a true Renaissance man -- David Runciman ― Guardian
Thoughtful, stimulating and even entertaining ... Lord Sumption's opinion is always worth listening to, even - or especially - if one disagrees with it. -- Robert Tombs ― Telegraph
Praise for Trials of the State:
Brisk, entertaining, brilliant ... one of the great lawyers of our time -- Bryan Appleyard ― Sunday Times
Magisterial -- Edward Fennell ― The Times
Elegant and crisply argued (Best Politics and Current Affairs Books of 2019) -- Robbie Millen ― The Times
The book is hard going, but rewarding. Sumption ... leads his readers persuasively to positions which, when they stop to think, they may not find comfortable -- Michael Fry ― The National (Scotland)
Sumption examines the increasingly difficult relationship between government and the courts... a former Supreme Court judge,[he] seems rather gloomy about democracy's future, but has produced a very readable analysis (The best current affairs and politics books of 2019) -- Roland White ― Sunday Times
Product Description
'Thoughtful, stimulating and even entertaining ... Lord Sumption's opinion is always worth listening to, even - or especially - if one disagrees with it.' Daily Telegraph
'Time spent on Law in a Time of Crisis is time spent in the company of a brilliant mind considering interesting things' The Times
Brexit, the independence referendum, the pandemic: the UK is a country in crisis. And, in crises, we turn to the law to set the boundaries of what the government can and should do. However, in a country with no written constitution, what sounds like a simple proposition is in fact anything but.
Based on his 2019 Reith lectures, former Supreme Court Judge Jonathan Sumption asks: what are the limits of law in politics? Is not having a constitution a hindrance or help in times of crisis? From referenda to the rise of nationalisms, Law in a Time of Crisis exposes the uses and abuses of legal intervention in British crises - past, present, and potential.
Book Description
An essential examination of the hinterland between the law and politics, judges and politicians.
About the Author
Jonathan Sumption, Lord Sumption, is a British judge and historian. He served as a Justice of the Supreme Court from 2012 to 2018. He has written several books of Medieval history including The Age of Pilgrimage, the Albigensian Crusade, and four books on the Hundred Years War, the third of which, Divided Houses, won the 2009 Wolfson History Prize. His previous books were published by Faber & Faber.
