Pardons : Discretionary Mercy and the Rule of Law in Britain and America, 1066-2026 - Frank O. Bowman III

Pardons

Discretionary Mercy and the Rule of Law in Britain and America, 1066-2026

By: Frank O. Bowman III

Hardcover | 31 October 2026

At a Glance

Hardcover


$153.99

or 4 interest-free payments of $38.50 with

 or 

Available: 31st October 2026

Preorder. Will ship when available.

Pardons is an unprecedented history of the pardon power, chronicling how British monarchs and American presidents have wielded clemency to afford mercy, reconcile societies, and exert executive supremacy. The book traces the pardon power from its origins as an attribute of absolute monarchy to its adoption by the American Framers as one of the few enumerated powers of the president of the United States. It tells the stories, human and political, of all forty-five presidents who have wielded the pardon power and of those they pardoned. The book argues that the increasing abuse of presidential clemency and the effective elimination of impeachment and criminal prosecution as constraints on presidential misconduct have made the pardon power a threat to the rule of law. To address this growing danger, Pardons calls for presidential pardon powers to be eliminated or transferred to Congress by constitutional amendment.

More in British & Irish History

Plunder - Max Hastings

Paperback

RRP $39.99

$31.75

21%
OFF
Abandoned Women : Scottish Convicts Exiled Beyond the Seas - Lucy Frost
The Anarchy : The Relentless Rise of the East India Company - William Dalrymple
Say Nothing : True Story Of Murder and Memory In Northern Ireland - Patrick Radden Keefe
The Journals of Captain Cook : Penguin Classics - James Cook

RRP $27.99

$23.75

15%
OFF
London : Secret and Hidden Places - Mark Daly

RRP $85.00

$61.99

27%
OFF
The Shortest History of Dublin - Gillian O'Brien

RRP $27.99

$23.75

15%
OFF
Blitz : When World War Two Came Home - John Nichol

RRP $55.00

$42.75

22%
OFF
Heirs and Graces : A History of the Modern British Aristocracy - Eleanor Doughty
Unruly : A History of England's Kings and Queens - David Mitchell

RRP $26.99

$22.99

15%
OFF
Lifeboat at the End of the World : A Volunteer's Story - Dominic Gregory
Edinburgh : City of Romanticism - Aonghus MacKechnie

RRP $112.00

$86.75

23%
OFF