Joseph Margulies

Joseph Margulies is an attorney with the MacArthur Justice Center and an Associate Clinical Professor at Northwestern University Law School in Chicago.

Earlier this month Benjamin Wittes mentioned that he was reading Margulies's book, Guantanamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power, so I checked in with Margulies to see what he was reading.

His reply:

I'm doing research for another book. As a general matter, I'm fascinated by society under stress -- the language, the policies, and the changes that emerge from these chaotic episodes. This has led me in several interesting directions, and right now I am spending a number of very enjoyable hours immersed in the immediate post-war period, especially the five years from 1946 to 1951. I've been working my way through a slew of monographs. These past few days have been spent on Walter Goodman's terrific book on the House Committee on Un-American Activities, The Committee, and Dean Acheson's autobiography, Present at the Creation. They are both quite old but available from online booksellers.

On my nightstand is the latest by my friend and fellow transplanted Chicagoan, Alex Kotlowitz: Never a City So Real: A Walk In Chicago. Alex, best known for There Are No Children Here, is a wonderful writer with a great gift for non-fiction character development. Chicago is a town full of characters and his book captures some great ones. I recommend it.

Jospeh Margulies received his B.A., with distinction, from Cornell University in 1982, and his J.D., cum laude, from Northwestern in 1988. After a clerkship with the Hon. William Hart of the Northern District of Illinois, Margulies joined the staff of the Texas Capital Resource Center, where he represented men and women on Texas' death row.

Learn more about Margulies's Guantánamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power (Simon and Schuster 2006) and read an excerpt.

--Marshal Zeringue