Fight of the Century

Award-winning writers contribute to a “moving . . . entertaining . . . enlightening” collection of essays, each inspired by a historic ACLU case (New York Times).

On January 19, 1920, a small group of idealists and visionaries, including Helen Keller, Jane Addams, Roger Baldwin, and Crystal Eastman, founded the American Civil Liberties Union. A century after its creation, the ACLU remains the nation’s premier defender of the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.

In collaboration with the ACLU, authors Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman have curated an anthology of essays “full of struggle, emotion, fear, resilience, hope, and triumph” (Los Angeles Review of Books) about landmark cases in the organization’s one-hundred-year history. Fight of the Century takes you inside the trials and the stories that have shaped modern life. Some of the most prominent cases that the ACLU has been involved in—Brown v. Board of Education, Roe v. Wade, Miranda v. Arizona—need little introduction. Others you may never even have heard of, yet their outcomes quietly defined the world we live in now.

Including essays from Neil Gaiman, Meg Wolitzer, Salman Rushdie, Ann Patchett, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Hector Tobar, Louise Erdrich, George Saunders and many more, Fight of the Century reminds us that the issues the ACLU has engaged over the past one hundred years remain as vital as ever today.

“Vigorous, informative, and well-organized, this outstanding collection befits the ACLU’s substantial impact on American law and society.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

“A stunning collection of original and topical essays.” —Booklist, starred review

“Lively, contextually grounded stories that read like the greatest hits of freedom. . . . riveting and refreshingly diverse.” —Kirkus Reviews