|
|
Sold Out
Book Categories |
| Foreword | v | |
| Introduction: "The Genius of the Constitution" | xiii | |
| Section I | "To Establish a More Perfect Union" | 1 |
| Chapter 1 | "Morally Sinful by the Word of God": The law of the colonial era and its treatment of religious dissenters, women, blacks, and Indians | 3 |
| Chapter 2 | "The Exigencies of the Union": The Constitutional Convention meets in 1787; James Madison and the Virginia Plan | 17 |
| Chapter 3 | "Dishonorable to the National Character": The Framers debate the powers of Congress; the Great Compromise over slavery | 27 |
| Chapter 4 | "The Supreme Law of the Land": The Framers debate executive power and establish the Supreme Court | 36 |
| Chapter 5 | "The Country Must Finally Decide": The Framers debate a bill of rights; the final drafting and signing of the Constitution | 48 |
| Chapter 6 | "The Plot Thickens Fast": The states debate and ratify the Constitution | 59 |
| Chapter 7 | "The Nauseous Project of Amendments": The First Congress debates a bill of rights; the states ratify the first ten amendments | 69 |
| Section II | "It Is a Constitution We Are Expounding" | 83 |
| Chapter 8 | "The Court Is Now Sitting": Establishing the Supreme Court; its first sessions and members | 85 |
| Hayburn's Case (1792) | ||
| Chisholm v. Georgia (1793) | ||
| Chapter 9 | "To Say What the Law Is": Congress passes the Sedition Act; Chief Justice John Marshall and judicial power | 96 |
| Marbury v. Madison (1803) | ||
| Chapter 10 | "These Jarring and Discordant Judgments": The impeachment of Justice Samuel Chase; conflicts between federal and state powers | 108 |
| Fletcher v. Peck (1810) | ||
| Martin v. Hunter's Lessee (1816) | ||
| Cohens v. Virginia (1821) | ||
| Chapter 11 | "The Good and the Wise": Federal power over the states; the Court construes the Contract Clause | 121 |
| McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) | ||
| Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819) | ||
| Sturges v. Crowninshield (1819) | ||
| Gibbons v. Ogden (1824) | ||
| Ogden v. Saunders (1827) | ||
| Barron v. Baltimore (1833) | ||
| Chapter 12 | "Great, Good, and Excellent Man!": The Court first confronts slavery; Chief Justice Marshall dies and Roger Taney takes over | 137 |
| The Antelope (1825) | ||
| Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge (1837) | ||
| The Amistad (1841) | ||
| Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842) | ||
| Section III | "Justly and Lawfully Be Reduced to Slavery" | 155 |
| Chapter 13 | "A Small, Pleasant-Looking Negro": The background of the Dred Scott case and the legal rights of blacks | 157 |
| Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) | ||
| Chapter 14 | "Beings of an Inferior Order": The Court decides that blacks are not citizens and have no legal rights | 168 |
| Dred Scott v. Sandford, cont. (1857) | ||
| Chapter 15 | "Another Explosion Will Soon Come": Reaction to the Dred Scott decision; the Lincoln-Douglas debates and the Civil War | 179 |
| Ex Parte Milligan (1866) | ||
| Chapter 16 | "A Higher Law Than the Constitution": Congress adopts and the states ratify the Civil War amendments | 190 |
| Slaughterhouse Cases (1873) | ||
| United States v. Cruickshank (1876) | ||
| Chapter 17 | "An Evil Eye and an Unequal Hand": The Civil Rights Act of 1875; the disputed presidential election of 1876 | 206 |
| Civil Rights Cases (1883) | ||
| Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886) | ||
| Chapter 18 | "Our Constitution Is Color-Blind": The Court confronts the Jim Crow system of racial segregation | 221 |
| Plessy v. Ferguson (1895) | ||
| Section IV | "Liberty in a Social Organization" | 233 |
| Chapter 19 | "The Spectre of Socialism": The laissez-faire Constitution and the challenge of socialism and populism | 235 |
| Munn v. Illinois (1877) | ||
| Mugler v. Kansas (1877) | ||
| Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway v. Minnesota (1890) | ||
| United States v. E. C. Knight Co. (1895) | ||
| Pollock v. Farmers' Loan Co. (1895) | ||
| In re Debs (1895) | ||
| Chapter 20 | "The Work Was Light and Healthful": The rights of workers and regulation of the workplace | 248 |
| Allgeyer v. Louisiana (1897) | ||
| Holden v. Hardy (1898) | ||
| Lochner v. New York (1905) | ||
| Muller v. Oregon (1908) | ||
| Adkins v. Childrens Hospital (1923) | ||
| Chapter 21 | "Falsely Shouting Fire in a Theatre": World War I, the Sedition Act, and free speech rights | 265 |
| Schenck v. United States (1919) | ||
| Debs v. United States (1919) | ||
| Abrams v. United States (1919) | ||
| Chapter 22 | "Every Idea Is an Incitement": The Court reacts to the Red Scare that followed the war | 282 |
| Gitlow v. New York (1925) | ||
| Whitney v. California (1927) | ||
| De Jonge v. Oregon (1937) | ||
| Herndon v. Lowry (1937) | ||
| Chapter 23 | "The General Welfare of the United States": The Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt, and the New Deal in court | 294 |
| Home Building & Loan Assn. v. Blaisdell (1934) | ||
| Nebbia v. New York (1934) | ||
| Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States (1935) | ||
| United States v. Butler (1936) | ||
| Chapter 24 | "To Save the Constitution from the Court": Roosevelt's court-packing plan and the Constitutional Revolution of 1937 | 307 |
| Carter v. Carter Coal Co. (1936) | ||
| Morehead v. Tipaldo (1936) | ||
| West Coast Hotel v. Parrish (1937) | ||
| Chapter 25 | "Hughes Thundered Out the Decision": The demise of the laissez-faire Constitution; Roosevelt packs the Court with New Dealers | 318 |
| NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Co. (1937) | ||
| Section V | "Beyond the Reach of Majorities" | 331 |
| Chapter 26 | "We Live by Symbols": Footnote Four and the Jehovah's Witnesses cases | 333 |
| United States v. Carolene Products Co. (1938) | ||
| Minersville School Board v. Gobitis (1940) | ||
| West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette (1943) | ||
| Chapter 27 | "A Jap's a Jap": The wartime internment of Japanese Americans and the redress movement | 348 |
| Hirabayashi v. United States (1943) | ||
| Korematsu v. United States (1944) | ||
| Ex parte Endo (1944) | ||
| Chapter 28 | "My Little Soul Is Overjoyed": The NAACP campaign against segregation; the Communist Party in the courts | 365 |
| Gaines v. Canada (1938) | ||
| Sipuel v. Oklahoma Board of Regents (1948) | ||
| Shelley v. Kraemer (1948) | ||
| Sweatt v. Painter (1950) | ||
| McLaurin v. Oklahoma (1950) | ||
| Dennis v. United States (1951) | ||
| Chapter 29 | "Give Me the Colored Doll": The school segregation cases | 383 |
| Brown v. Board of Education (1954) | ||
| Chapter 30 | "War on the Constitution": The Brown decisions and the Little Rock insurrection against judicial authority | 395 |
| Brown v. Board of Education, cont. (1954) | ||
| Cooper v. Aaron (1958) | ||
| Chapter 31 | "A Better Place Because He Lived": The Warren Court and the Bill of Rights | 409 |
| Everson v. Board of Education (1947) | ||
| McCollum v. Illinois (1948) | ||
| Engel v. Vitale (1962) | ||
| Abington Township v. Schempp (1963) | ||
| Lee v. Weisman (1992) | ||
| Reynolds v. Sims (1964) | ||
| Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States (1964) | ||
| Miranda v. Arizona (1966) | ||
| United States v. O'Brien (1968) | ||
| Tinker v. Des Moines (1969) | ||
| New York Times v. Sullivan (1964) | ||
| Section VI | "A Right of Personal Privacy" | 421 |
| Chapter 32 | "You've Been Taking Pure Thalidomide": The Court deals with procreation | 423 |
| Skinner v. Oklahoma (1942) | ||
| Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) | ||
| Chapter 33 | "The Raw Edges of Human Existence": The issue of abortion | 436 |
| Roe v. Wade (1973) | ||
| Chapter 34 | "Truly a Pandora's Box": Affirmative action and gay rights | 450 |
| Regents v. Bakke (1978) | ||
| Bowers v. Hardwick (1986) | ||
| Chapter 35 | "I Fear for the Future": The Court divides over abortion, flag burning, and affirmative action | 464 |
| Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989) | ||
| Texas v. Johnson (1989) | ||
| Richmond v. J. A. Croson Co. (1989) | ||
| Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) | ||
| Epilogue: "How to Treat Other People" | 481 | |
| United States Constitution | 485 | |
| The Justices of the Supreme Court | 502 | |
| Notes | 507 | |
| Sources for Further Reading | 526 | |
| Index | 531 |
| Price | Condition | Delivery | Seller | Action |
| $99.99 | Digital |
| WonderClub |
Jose Borges
reviewed People's History of Supreme Court on November 09, 2010
People's History of Supreme Court
This groovy and jargon-free narrative is both more and less than the title suggests. "People's history" now indicates an openly ideological effort to recast "history" with sociology, underground martyrs, tragedies, and a general attempt to foreground the voiceless, plus ignore the "Great Men" except when they're bastards. This was Howard Zinn's messy specialty, and his foreword here is a benediction. But Irons doesn't wander into the Zinn muck very much: the Great Men (and Women) are very much with us here, albeit cut down to size. And though Irons gives some exciting narrative background to cases like Dred Scott and Gobitis, plus paints new portraits of the great Justices at work, on the whole I read this as more of a "popular history" -- i.e. a Supreme Court history stripped of mystery and legalese, with a bit of human frailty and excitement added in.
Some of the reviewers here were put off by the lengthy account of the Philadelphia Convention in 1787 -- 115 days of argument in eighty pages here. But I was riveted, and I think Irons's purpose is clear: the United States Constitution was not holy writ created by a meeting of brilliant minds, but the product of prejudice, compromise, experiment, short tempers, and windows shut against spies in mid-summer heat. Irons gives the lie to "strict constructionists" who ignore the social context and bitter debates -- not just in Philadelphia but in twelve state legislatures -- that got this cool but obviously Frankenstein-shaped document passed. Barely.
The rest of the book is a very selective history of the Court (our least democratic institution) as it shaped and got reshaped by a bitter, global, and bloody historical trajectory. One thing you'll notice -- and Irons takes pains to point this out at every turn -- is that most Supreme Court justices were mediocrities, dimwits, or worse. Hell even the position of CHIEF JUSTICE has often been filled by blinkered ideologues and political hacks. Dred Scott was not just an institution shooting itself in the foot, but let's face it, a wizened Southern aristocrat using his limited brainspace to arbitrate the future of our country. Similar idiotic results obtain in Plessy vs. Ferguson and Korematsu among many others.
But Irons properly exalts the heroes of the story, including John Marshall, John Marshall Harlan, Brandeis, Frank Murphy, Earl Warren, William Brennan, hell even Thurgood Marshall (whose epic strategery for the NAACP far overshadowed his work as a Justice). Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. comes in for a bit of criticism as an elitist on several fronts, though it's hard to deny his writing and ability to keep the Court among America's respected institutions during rough times. Earl Warren is a fascinating mystery -- a conservative family-values Republican from California now widely perceived as the most liberal Chief Justice ever. Conversely, Antonin Scalia is revealed as a snarky and bitterly ideological justice whose pen gets dipped in Bible blood when homosexuality hits the docket. Fascinating to see justices grappling with their own ideology and this immutable (ha!) document to figure out crazy cases, and when the dodgy "right to privacy" came out the box in the sixties, well -- all hell breaks loose. And that continues today.
Irons does put together a compelling picture of strange times and strange cases, involving rightous grievants and grumbly, witty, twitchy justices -- hell I kinda think an illustrated version of this would become a bestseller. But he fails at the end, where he considers the contemporary (2005) Court. Bush v. Gore, where the Court essentially re-enacted Dred Scott and pissed a political decision into the air that had nothing to do with the Constitution -- gets a bland recounting without any fire of ideology whatsoever. And he seems all too careful in his assessment of Roberts and Alito... whereupon the book ends, abruptly, with no postscript or any effort to look back and bring these scores of morons and occasional geniuses into perspective as a part of American life and history. That omission forces me to omit a star. Well worth reading though...
Login|Complaints|Blog|Games|Digital Media|Souls|Obituary|Contact Us|FAQ
CAN'T FIND WHAT YOU'RE LOOKING FOR? CLICK HERE!!! X
You must be logged in to add to WishlistX
This item is in your Wish List
X
This item is in your Collection
People's History of Supreme Court
X
This Item is in Your Inventory
People's History of Supreme Court
X
You must be logged in to review the productsX
X
X
Add People's History of Supreme Court, Recent changes in the Supreme Court have placed the venerable institution at the forefront of current affairs, making this comprehensive and engaging work as timely as ever. In the tradition of Howard Zinn's classic A People's History of the United Sta, People's History of Supreme Court to the inventory that you are selling on WonderClubX
X
Add People's History of Supreme Court, Recent changes in the Supreme Court have placed the venerable institution at the forefront of current affairs, making this comprehensive and engaging work as timely as ever. In the tradition of Howard Zinn's classic A People's History of the United Sta, People's History of Supreme Court to your collection on WonderClub |
