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Title: A History of the Supreme Court by Bernard Schwartz ISBN: 0-19-509387-9 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: January, 1995 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.89 (9 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Judges, Judgements, and Judicial Review
Comment: Bernard Schwartz's "A History of the Supreme Court" is a readable if dry narrative of the 200 years of the Supreme Court between John Jay and William Rhenquist. The story of the supreme court is a complicated one, and for the most part, Schwartz tells it well. If his book is short on analysis and long on description, it is probably more due to the nature of the subject then to the qualities of the author.
Schwartz focuses on two main themes in the narrative. The first one, addressed in the Prologue and in the first few chapters, deal with the practice of Judicial Review in Anglo-Saxon common law, and especially in the early US, where under Chief Justice Marshall, the supreme court has been established as SUPREME - that is, in position to pass judgment on State legislators, State courts, and even the US Congress.
The theme is very prominent in the early history of the Court, where the Supreme Court fulfilled its Hamiltonian role as the final authority on the constitutionality of law. Very early, US Justices have proved that they were every bit the politicians as the Jurists - Chief Marshall successfully established Judicial Review in his Marbury vs. Madison decision, while Roger B Taney catastrophically endangered it in his attempt to end the political crisis of the Union via his Dred Scott Decision.
Later in the book, Schwartz still devotes time to the question of Judicial Review, but then in a new disguise - that of Judicial restraint, which Schwartz first sees in the actions of Roger B Taney, but which were only manifested plainly in the dissents of Oliver Wendell Holmes, most famously in the Lochner vs. New York case (1905), where the majority judges, led by Rufus W. Peckham, substituted its judgement to that of the legislative branch, and ruled a law restricting working hours unconstitutional. Under Judicial Restraints, the Supreme Court was only to overrule laws which no reasonable person could say were constitutional.
The other major theme in Schwartz's narrative is the switch from the primacy of property rights in the 19th century, to the supremacy of personal rights in the 20th. As the US came to allow much more government intervention in the economy, Schwartz argues, the rights of the private citizen, and especially the rights guaranteed in the bill of rights and the right of privacy had to be privileged. This tendency reached its climax in the Warren court, and particularly in the Brown vs. Board of Education decision. Surprisingly, though, the subsequent Burger court did not overthrow the trend. Rather, important personal rights judgements (such as Miranda) were affirmed, and even the right to abortion was guaranteed, as a right included within the right of privacy. The Rhenquist Court, though even more conservative then the Berger Court, has yet to turn the tables on Warren's revolution; indeed, the recent judgement against anti-Homosexual laws in Texas is another landmark civil rights decision.
Schwartz's book is interesting and thorough, but is not without flaws. The writing is somewhat crude, and Schwartz quotes other historians much too much. Schwartz has also an irritating tendency to use the same quote several times, and one quote from judge Frankfurter appears four times at least. The book also has the annoying tendency to assume all the readers are Americans.
Worse, sometimes Schwartz's scholarship is lacking. In the case of Dred Scott vs. Sandford, for example, Schwartz's makes no reference to the classic study by Don E. Fehernbacher, either in the text or in the bibliography. As a consequence, several of Schwartz's conclusion are somewhat distorted, and sometimes his views come out of the blue entirely. Thus Schwartz calls Stephen Douglas "the chief political victim of the Dred Scott Decision" [p.124] which is inaccurate and highly misleading. In the short run, Douglas's popularity in the South did not diminish after the Dred Scot decision, and when it did, it was due to his opposition to Lexington, not to Dred Scott. In any event, Schwartz completely ignores the sectional split within the Democratic Party, a split that was indeed seemingly worsened by the Dred Scott decision, which abandoned ambiguity in favour of an endorsement of the Southern view.
Ultimately, Schwartz's book is both instructive and readable. If it is does not quite warrant a general endorsement, it is a good primer for those interested in American legal history.
Rating: 4
Summary: A Good Overview
Comment: Supreme Court history books are ridiculously difficult to find. In part, it's because the Supreme Court is notoriously secretive about its inner workings; in part, it's because to outline a history of the Supreme Court is by necessity to cover law as it applies to the Constitution, which can be pretty dry stuff.
I was vigilant, however. And in Bernard Schwartz's 1993 _A History of the Supreme Court_, I found almost the perfect book for what I was looking for: a non-lawyer's history of the Supreme Court.
Schwartz begins with a quick history of judicial review, the founding principle of the Supreme Court. He also goes into some detail as to the Judiciary Acts and how they affected the Court over the years. I admit: I found this section dry. However, once Schwartz began covering the specific Justices (organized by era according to the Chief Justice that presided over time), things pick up, and I really began to feel like I was learning something useful.
Schwartz also covers four of what he considers to be "watershed" cases, and goes into some detail as to the reason why the cases were accepted, deliberations, and how each justice reacted in deciding the cases. The four cases -- Dred Scott v. Sandford, Lochner v. New York, Brown v. Board of Education, and Roe v. Wade -- are certainly landmark cases, and really provide a good deal of continuity from one era to the next of the Supreme Court.
I would have liked for Schwartz to have been slightly less even handed with his commentary; he acts as an apologist for both Taney and Burger, and I have little sympathy for the two men even after reading about them from a fairly sympathetic point of view. I would also have liked to have had slightly more biographical history on some judges, especially the ones that he tantalizingly mentions in a poor light, and then moves on after merely a sentence. Schwartz's book is remarkably optimistic for such a scholarly presentation.
Particularly, I enjoyed Schwartz's treatment of Holmes, Jackson, Frankfurter, and Warren; I would very much have liked to learn more about Hughes, Brennan, Douglas, Black, Harlan, and a host of other judges. However, I didn't purchase a copy of _A History of the Supreme Court Justices_, I purchased a copy of _A History of the Supreme Court_, and that's what Schwartz delivers.
Schartz's near-Panglossian view of the Court -- practically that each Chief Justice, save perhaps Vinson and White, were there at the precise time they were needed -- rankles a bit from time to time, but as a relatively quick, non-legal history of the Supreme Court, I can highly recommend this book.
Rating: 3
Summary: The best single volume history of the Supreme Court
Comment: Schwatz's history is easily accesible and not bogged down with too much technical jargin. This book is best for non-students of the Court for it offers little more than an overview without a great deal of significant analysis. The exception being the fairly good case studies of Dred Scott, Lochner, Brown, and Roe. Though the book offers little to the historical debate concerning the Court, it wasn't really supposed to. Schwartz wanted to write a relatively short, accesible, single volume history of the Supreme Court. He succeded. I recomend it for anyone interested in the basics of the Court and it's history.
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Title: A People's History of the Supreme Court by Peter H. Irons, Howard Zinn ISBN: 0140292012 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 01 August, 2000 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: The Oxford Guide to United States Supreme Court Decisions by Kermit Hall ISBN: 0195139240 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: January, 2001 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Votes That Counted: How the Court Decided the 2000 Presidential Election by Howard Gillman ISBN: 0226294080 Publisher: University of Chicago Press (Trd) Pub. Date: April, 2003 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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Title: Closed Chambers: The Rise, Fall, and Future of the Modern Supreme Court by Edward Lazarus ISBN: 0140283560 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: June, 1999 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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Title: The Supreme Court : A new edition of the Chief Justice's classic history by William H. Rehnquist ISBN: 0375409432 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 06 February, 2001 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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