Thomas Cahill: 6 great works about justice & injustice

Thomas Cahill is the author of the best-selling books, How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe, The Gifts of the Jews: How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels, Desire of the Everlasting Hills: The World Before and After Jesus, Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter, and Mysteries of the Middle Ages: And the Beginning of the Modern World.

His new book is A Saint on Death Row: The Story of Dominique Green.

For The Week magazine, he named "six great works about justice and injustice."

One title on the list:

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens (Dover, $3.50).

This exposé on the exploitation of children is the granddaddy of fiction written to precipitate societal transformation by the shock of its material. From Dickens descends every novelist of social conscience from Émile Zola to Toni Morrison.

Read about another work on Cahill's list.

--Marshal Zeringue