A People's History of the Supreme Court - Hardcover

Irons, Peter H.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670870064 ISBN 13: 9780670870066

Publisher: Viking, 1999

Synopsis

Traces the history of the Supreme Court from 1787 to the present day, profiling every justice from John Jay to Stephen Breyer, and examines the cases that have transformed American history and the court's controversial rulings on such issues as racial segregation, abortion, gay rights, and free speech. 17,500 first printing.

About this title

From the Author:

The real people behind the pages of Supreme Court opinions
I'll make this short, but I'm glad to have this chance to speak (so to speak) directly to people who might be interested in purchasing my book. The title, as you may have guessed, is borrowed from Howard Zinn's great book, A People's History of the United States. Howard was my mentor in graduate school and inspired me to approach my own writing through the stories of real people. I've done that in books like The Courage of Their Convictions: Sixteen Americans Who Fought Their Way to the Supreme Court, and Justice at War: The Story of the Japanese American Internment Cases.

When I decided to write a full-scale history of the Supreme Court, I framed the book around a relatively small number of cases (about 85) so that I could give the reader enough context and detail about each one to fully understand and appreciate the human story behind the case. (Other Supreme Court histories briefly discuss anywhere from 400 to 900 cases, and reading them is like watching telephone poles go by on the highway). So I tell the reader about people like Dred Scott, Homer Plessy, Jacob Abrams, Lillian Gobitas, Fred Korematsu, Harry Briggs (whose case was first of the five in Brown v. Bd. of Education), "Jane Roe," and Michael Hardwick. I also introduce readers to Supreme Court justices like John Marshall, Roger Taney, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Harlan Stone, Felix Frankfurter, Earl Warren, William Douglas, Warren Burger, and William Rehnquist.

I don't make any attempt to conceal my positions on the cases and justices I write about: I believe, like Justice Brennan, that "the genius of the Constitution lies in the adaptability of its great principles to cope with current problems and curent needs." In my opinion, those who champion "original intent" as a method of interpreting the Constitution in the (soon to be) 21st century, remain locked into the narrow outlook of the 18th century, in a country that accepted slavery and the suppression of dissent. So this is a lively book, one that lets the general reader gain an understanding of how law and politics intersect, and that avoids legal jargon in favor of plain English. I'd be glad to have feedback from anyone who reads the book and has questions or comments--both pro and con.

About the Author:

Peter Irons is professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego. He is the author of five previous award-winning books. The most recent, A People's History of the Supreme Court, was awarded the Silver Gavel Certificate of Merit by the American Bar Association.

About this edition

• Publisher: Viking
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0670870064
• ISBN 13: 9780670870066
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 560