The Brethren is the first detailed behind-the-scenes account of the Supreme Court in action. Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong have pierced its secrecy to give us an unprecedented view of the Chief and Associate Justices—maneuvering, arguing, politicking, compromising, and making decisions that affect every major area of American life.
A thrilling, behind-the-scenes account of the revolutionary Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling. The Justices Behind Roe V. Wade offers a front-row seat to the inner workings of the Supreme Court that led to the monumental Roe v. Wade decision. Spanning from 1969 to 1972, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Bob Woodward and coauthor Scott Armstrong report on the masterful maneuvering and politicking that affected the court’s decisions and created obstacles for the landmark ruling. Abridged from the #1 bestseller The Brethren, this is an exquisite work of reporting on one of the most important rulings of the United States.
In the first Supreme Court history told primarily through eyewitness accounts from Court insiders, Clare Cushman provides readers with a behind-the-scenes look at the people, practices, and traditions that have shaped an American institution for more than 200 years. Each chapter covers one general thematic topic and weaves a narrative from memoirs, letters, diaries, and newspaper accounts by the Justices, their spouses and children, court reporters, clerks, oral advocates, court staff, journalists, and other eyewitnesses. These accounts allow readers to feel as if they are squeezed into the packed courtroom in 1844 as silver-tongued orator Daniel Webster addresses the court; eavesdropping on an exasperated Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., in 1930 as he snaps at a clerk’s critique of his draft opinion; or sharing a taxi with future Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., in 2005 as he rushes home from the airport in anticipation of a phone call from President Bush offering him the nomination to the Supreme Court. This entertaining and enlightening tour of the Supreme Court’s colorful personalities and inner workings will be of interest to all readers of American political and legal history.
The former legal affairs editor of Newsweek takes us inside the secret world of the Supreme Court and shows how the justices subvert the role of the other branches of government—and how we’ve come to accept it at our peril. Never before has the Court been more central in American life. It is now the nine justices who too often decide the biggest issues of our time—from abortion and same-sex marriage to gun control, campaign finance, and voting rights. The Court is so crucial that many voters in 2016 made their choice based on whom they thought their presidential candidate would name to the Court. Donald Trump picked Neil Gorsuch—the key decision of his new administration. The newest justice, Brett Kavanaugh—replacing Anthony Kennedy—is even more important, holding the swing vote over so much social policy. With the 2020 campaign underway, and with two justices in their ’80s, the Court looms even larger. Is that really how democracy is supposed to work? Based on exclusive interviews with the justices, Kaplan provides fresh details about life behind the scenes at the Court: the reaction to Kavanaugh’s controversial arrival, the new role for Chief Justice John Roberts, Clarence Thomas's simmering rage, Antonin Scalia's death, Ruth Bader Ginsburg's celebrity, Breyer Bingo, and the petty feuding between Gorsuch and the chief justice. Kaplan offers a sweeping narrative of the justices’ aggrandizement of power over the decades—from Roe v. Wade to Bush v. Gore to Citizens United. (He also faults the Court for not getting involved when it should—for example, to limit partisan gerrymandering.) But the arrogance of the Court isn't partisan: Conservative and liberal justices alike are guilty of overreach. Challenging conventional wisdom about the Court's transcendent power, as well as presenting an intimate inside look at the Court, The Most Dangerous Branch is sure to rile both sides of the political aisle.
A tiny, ebullient Jew who started as America's leading liberal and ended as its most famous judicial conservative. A Klansman who became an absolutist advocate of free speech and civil rights. A backcountry lawyer who started off trying cases about cows and went on to conduct the most important international trial ever. A self-invented, tall-tale Westerner who narrowly missed the presidency but expanded individual freedom beyond what anyone before had dreamed. Four more different men could hardly be imagined. Yet they had certain things in common. Each was a self-made man who came from humble beginnings on the edge of poverty. Each had driving ambition and a will to succeed. Each was, in his own way, a genius. They began as close allies and friends of FDR, but the quest to shape a new Constitution led them to competition and sometimes outright warfare. Scorpians tells the story of these four great justices: their relationship with Roosevelt, with each other, and with the turbulent world of the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. It also serves as a history of the modern Constitution itself.
"Operating within a Network of Byzantine Secrecy, The United States Supreme Court is the most powerful judicial institution in the world. Nine unelected justices are charged with protecting our most cherished rights and shaping our fundamental laws."--BOOK JACKET. "In this account, Edward Lazarus, who served as a clerk to Justice Harry Blackmun, provides an insider's guided tour of a court at war with itself and often in neglect of its constitutional duties. Combining memoir, history, and legal analysis, Lazarus weaves together past and present to reveal how law, politics, and personality collide in the Court's inner sanctum."--BOOK JACKET.
A thrilling, behind-the-scenes account of the revolutionary Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling. The Justices Behind Roe V. Wade offers a front-row seat to the inner workings of the Supreme Court that led to the monumental Roe v. Wade decision. Spanning from 1969 to 1972, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Bob Woodward and coauthor Scott Armstrong report on the masterful maneuvering and politicking that affected the court’s decisions and created obstacles for the landmark ruling. Abridged from the #1 bestseller The Brethren, this is an exquisite work of reporting on one of the most important rulings of the United States.
The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court (New York, Simon & Schuster, 1979) is a chronological narrative dealing with the docket of the US Supreme Court from October 1969 through July 1976. With respect to genre- poetry, prose, fiction, nonfiction, etc.- I can with some degree of confidence report that the book is prose and not bad prose at that. Concerning whether the book is fiction or nonfiction, however, I speak with far less confidence.