Guarding Life's Dark Secrets

Lawrence M. Friedman is Marion Rice Kirkwood Professor of Law atStanford Law School. His books include Private Lives: Families, Individuals, and the Law (2005), American Law in the Twentieth Century (2004), and Legal Culture in the Age of Globalization (2003).

• Contents: Acknowledgmentsxxx Chapter OneOur General Argument000 Chapter TwoStatus and Mobility in the Nineteenth Century000 Chapter ThreeSticks and Stones: The Law of Defamation000 Chapter FourThe Victorian Compromise: Slippage and Control in the Moral Laws000 Chapter FiveThe Anatomy of Blackmail000 Chapter SixGood Women, Bad Women: Seduction, Breach of Promise and Related Matters000 Chapter SevenCensorship: Its Rise and Fall000 Chapter EightInto the Twentieth Century000 Chapter NinePrivacy and Reputation in the Late Twentieth Century000 Chapter TenDefamation in Contemporary Times000 Chapter ElevenA Summing Up: And a Cautious Look at the Future000 Notes000 Index 000

"This is a wise, learned, and memorable text by one of the leading historians in America." —James Whitman, Yale Law School "As always, Friedman's wonderful eye for historical detail and his deep and wide research provide the reader an engaging and highly readable narrative ... The manuscript is a characteristically excellent piece of work by one of the very best practitioners of legal history." —John Fabian Witt, Columbia Law School "In his new book, Stanford legal historian Lawrence M. Friedman does not address these questions directly, but lays some useful groundwork for their contemplation by providing a social history of the legal remedies most commonly associated with protecting the privacy of personal information and behavior The book tells its main story clearly, entertainingly, and persuasively." —James A Gardner, University at Buffalo Law School, State University of New York "Friedman provides a detailed history of various legal concepts related to privacy and personal reputation. The strongest parts of the book attempt to address intriguing puzzles such as why truth has emerged as an absolute defense for libel, but truth makes blackmail a more serious offense Friedman's command of the material and many interesting examples make much of this story interesting." —CHOICE "To a cultural historian interested in the social construction of privacy Friedman's book offers an interesting and useful discussion of how the law has worked to protect reputation and privacy for some while leaving others unprotected."—American Historical Review "[The book] enriches our understanding of privacy as a shifting legal and cultural concept, it illuminates changing attitudes toward life's dark secrets, and it helps us fit the fate of a figure such as Eliot Spitzer into a broad historical context." —Journal of American History