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An authoritative, even-handed, and accessible history of the Supreme Court of the United States, the most powerful court in the world and the final arbiter of the world's oldest constitution.
Will abortion be legal? Should people of the same sex be allowed to marry? May colleges prefer black applicants over white ones? These are among the most bitterly contested issues in the United States today. We answer these questions, and many more, by presenting them to nine lawyers—the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. No other nation commits so many important questions to its highest court.
Stuart Banner's The Most Powerful Court in the World is an authoritative history of the United States Supreme Court from the Founding era to the present. Not merely a history of the Court's opinions and jurisprudence, it is also a rich account of the Court in the broadest sense—of the sorts of people who become justices and the methods by which they are chosen, of how the Court does its work, and of its relationship with other branches of government. It is about how the Court acquired so much power, how it has retained its power in the face of repeated challenges and criticisms, and what it has done with its power over the years. Rather than praising or criticizing the Court's decisions, Banner makes the case that one cannot fully understand the decisions without knowing about the institution that produced them.
Offering a fresh analytical window into today's contentious debates about the Court—debates that often rest on dubious ideas about the Court's history—The Most Powerful Court in the World helps readers see cases through the justices' eyes.
Abbreviations
Introduction
1. Establishing the Court
2. Itinerant Judges on a Part-time Court
3. Federal and State Power
4. Slaves and Indians
5. The Court and the Civil War
6. Life at the Court, 1870-1930
7. The Jim Crow Court
8. The Lochner Era
9. The Birth of the Modern Court
10. Court-Packing and Constitutional Change
11. The Justices at War
12. Desegregation
13. The Liberal Court
14. A Partial Counterrevolution
15. New Paths to the Court
16. Back to the Right
Epilogue
Abbreviations
Notes
Index
Description
An authoritative, even-handed, and accessible history of the Supreme Court of the United States, the most powerful court in the world and the final arbiter of the world's oldest constitution.
Will abortion be legal? Should people of the same sex be allowed to marry? May colleges prefer black applicants over white ones? These are among the most bitterly contested issues in the United States today. We answer these questions, and many more, by presenting them to nine lawyers—the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. No other nation commits so many important questions to its highest court.
Stuart Banner's The Most Powerful Court in the World is an authoritative history of the United States Supreme Court from the Founding era to the present. Not merely a history of the Court's opinions and jurisprudence, it is also a rich account of the Court in the broadest sense—of the sorts of people who become justices and the methods by which they are chosen, of how the Court does its work, and of its relationship with other branches of government. It is about how the Court acquired so much power, how it has retained its power in the face of repeated challenges and criticisms, and what it has done with its power over the years. Rather than praising or criticizing the Court's decisions, Banner makes the case that one cannot fully understand the decisions without knowing about the institution that produced them.
Offering a fresh analytical window into today's contentious debates about the Court—debates that often rest on dubious ideas about the Court's history—The Most Powerful Court in the World helps readers see cases through the justices' eyes.
