Description
Book SynopsisA history of the United States Supreme Court in the momentous yet usually overlooked years between the 1930s and 1950s. This period, written off as a time of failure and futility, was in reality the first phase of modern struggles to define the constitutional order of the twenty-first century.
Trade Review"This well-researched volume skillfully chronicles the work of the Supreme Court under Chief Justices Stone and Vinson. Although scholars have tended to give short shrift to this era, Wiecek makes a compelling argument that these years marked a watershed in constitutional history and pointed the court toward a new constitutional understanding. Wiecekas book will undoubtedly generate debate and will likely become the definitive treatment of the Stone-Vinson era." - James W. Ely, Jr., Vanderbilt University Law School
"A brilliantly done book by a master in the field. Wiecek guides us through an era that is troubled and often confusing, and he does it with a sure hand for what is important. This is a welcome and a noteworthy contribution to the Holmes Devise." - Melvin I. Urofsky, author of A March of Liberty: A Constitutional History of the United States and The Continuity of Change: The Supreme Court and Individual Liberties, 1953-1986
"William Wiecek blends research in the papers of the justices with the best insights of political, intellectual, and social history, and adds his own mature judgments to produce this superb, comprehensive, and accessible account of an often neglected period of constitutional history, demonstrating that the Supreme Court from 1941 to 1953 laid the foundations for nearly all of today's constitutional law." - Mark Tushnet, Georgetown University Law Center
"Wiecek, Congdon Professor of Law and Professor of History at Syracuse Unviersity, has written an encyclopedic study of the stone and Vinson Courts that is detailed and intellectually first-rate...it is a volume worthy of our attention and continued consultation." - The Green Bag Richard A. Paschal
"The cases that Wiecek chooses to write about he covers well and illuminatingly." - Law and History Review
Table of ContentsPart I. The Roosevelt Court: 1. American Public Law in 1941; 2. A new Court; 3. Carolene Products (1938): prism of the Stone Court; Part II. First Amendment Freedoms: 4. Freedom of speech in the Stone Court; 5. Freedom of speech in the Vinson Court; 6. The free exercise of religion; 7. The establishment of religion; Part III. World War Two and the Constitution: 8. Total war and the constitution; 9. Military courts and treason; 10. Silent Leges: Japanese internment; 11. National authority during and after the war; Part IV. The Truman Court: 12. The Truman Court; 13. American jurisprudence after the war: 'reason called law'; 14. The problem of incorporation; 15. Adamson v. California (1947): prism of the Vinson Court; Part V. The Cold War: 16. Anticommunism and the Cold War: Dennis v. United States; 17. The Cold War cases; Part VI. Civil Rights: 18. Civil Rights and the Stone Court; 19. Civil Rights and the Vinson Court.
