The Supreme Court's 6-3 decision in Roth v. United States (1957) for the first time tried to definitively rule on the issue of obscenity in American life and law-and failed. Whitney Strub lays out the history of obscenity's meaning as a legal concept, highlights the influence of anti-vice crusaders like Anthony Comstock, and chronicles the shadowy career of Samuel Roth ("America's leading smut lung") who spent nearly a decade imprisoned for the allegedly obscene materials he sent through the mails. Strub then unwraps the events that produced the Roth case, places the trial in the context of its times, and fully explores the impact of Justice William Brennan's majority opinion-which on the one hand reflected the liberalizing attitude toward sexual matters in mid-century America, but on the other kept "obscene" expressions beyond First Amendment protection. -- Publisher description