A People's History of the Supreme Court: The Men and Women Whose Cases and Decisions Have Shaped Our Constitution: Revised Edition

I got this book for a class in college and I completely thought that the men and women put on the Supreme Court were intelligent, thoughtful, fair and able to suspend themselves from society in order to have an unbiased opinion on the decisions that affect the whole country...Holy crap was I wrong.

It's a fun read, although dense at times but it covers the cases, the histories of those cases, the people serving on the Supreme court, and their histories, during that decision and the surrounding context of the nation in general. It was quite entertaining and mind blowing knowing that some of the people that served on the Supreme Court system were poor, not lawyers, some were certifiably insane, picked on party lines only, and in some decisions went against the obvious answer and changed history and facts to justify their own personal feeling in their decisions.

If you have ever thought that the Supreme court system was noble or the people who were on it were the cream of the crop from law backgrounds; you need to read this book.

Peter Irons is an ardent patriot. He believes passionately in the founding promises of America as expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights: "all men are created equal" - "life liberty and the pursuit of happiness" for all people - "justice for all" - "promote the General welfare" - "no law respecting an establishment of religion....or abridging the freedom of speech." With these ideals always in mind, Irons is not hesitant about passing judgement on America and the Americans, in this book on the Supreme Court, when actions are committed or decisions made which fail to fulfill these promises. In other words, Irons is not an impartial, neutral historian. If the reader has dissimilar understandings of the founding promises, she or he may react hostilely to A People's History of the Supreme Court. But that reader especially should make the effort to suspend judgement and read on. This is a very fine book even if you disagree with it. Irons knows his judicial history well, and he explains the issues of important Supreme Court decisions with amazing clarity. He also treats the key personalities of Supreme Court history with respect, recognizing the greatness even of Justices whose opinions had unfortunate consequences. The only justices he scorns are those who made no contribution.

The first seven chapters of the book describe the battles and compromises that went into the writing of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and thereafter into the establishment of the first Supreme Court. We hear a lot about the "intentions" of the founding fathers these days; Irons analyzes what we can and can't be sure of, concerning those intentions, with masterful support from the available sources. He establishes very convincingly that from the start America has been polarized over the intertwined issues of racism and the proper balance of federal authority versus states' rights. Irons clearly defends his interpretation of the Constitution as a document establishing federal authority, but yielding fatal compromises with the usually less-than-admirable demands of states with peculiar institutions. Slavery is of course the biggest and most fatal such compromise, the one that most threatened to destroy the efforts of the Constitution-writers, and the one that the Supreme Court failed to resolve in keeping with the founding promises for the longest time - not making much progress until the Warren Court.

Irons plainly believes that "states' rights" has most frequently been a pretext for reneging on those founding promises of justice and equality. He makes a very good case throughout the book that the federal government has frequently operated just as Madison hoped in his Federalist essays, eventually though painfully imposing justice for all when one or several states denied justice to some. The implication is that the federal government, with its awkward checks and balances, is indeed the guardian of the Constitution and of the American aspirations of liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The very best section of the book is Section IV: Liberty in a Social Organization. These seven chapters deal with economic justice, beginning with the distressing misuse of the 14th Amendment by the courts and the Supreme Court to impose a feudal system of employer/employee relations on the whole country, to legislate a "laissez-faire" ideology from the bench. Irons makes no bones, by the way, in finding that the Court has always been staffed with "activist" justices. The turning point in modernizing economic democracy - in fulfilling the promise of promoting the General welfare - comes in the New Deal court confrontations between the "horsemen of reaction" and the agents of reform. FDR's threat of `stacking the court' is usually portrayed as one of his most embarrassing failures, but Irons sees it rather as a piece of the drama, an effective tactic perhaps, of compelling the Court to change its ways, to stop representing only the economic interests of capitalists and to address the needs of the whole American people. Irons is not waging a propaganda campaign, however. His accounts of the crucial Court decisions of the 1930s outline the arguments for both sides with precision and balance.

Section V presents the remarkable tale of the Supreme Court turning its attention from issues of property and labor rights to issues of civil liberties. This is the drama of our lifetimes, isn't it? Obviously Irons is fully partisan to the promise of "liberty and justice for all, but once again he depicts the conflicts on the Supreme Court with marvelous clarity.

Section VI will inevitably offend those readers who define themselves as conservative. It narrates the demise of the great consensus of the Warren Court and the subsequent bitter division of the Supreme Court from Nixon to Clinton. Irons quite openly regards the Republican appointed reactionary justices as attempting to renege once more on those lovely founding promises. Still I urge conservative readers to let Irons make his case before ranting against it. He writes very well. It's an entertaining book to hate, if that's your choice after reading it.

I think that most of the reviewers of this book must be lawyers who are accustomed to over developed and complicated sentence structure. This is a writing technique well practiced by the legal profession and insurance policy writers.

Slogging through this book is just plain tortuous. It is very detailed and is probably a good book for pre-law or first year law students. Anyone else will find it to be painful.

The author is definitely a lefty but presents his viewpoints honestly and very well. The subject matter is fascinating but the execution is excruciating.

Don't kid yourself into thinking that this is a disinterested history of the Supreme Court of the United States. It isn't, it is a highly politicized look at the history of the cases heard before the highest court in the land, with a special emphasis on the cases that dealt directly with individual rights. The Dred Scott decision, which reinforced the slavery and Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion both get a lot of play in this book. As do lesser known cases involving the internment of American's of Japanese decent, and early cases involving slavery issues such as the little known Antelope case.

It's a well written book, full of telling details about not only the justices who heard these cases, but also the people behind the case names. We learn what Earl Warren, the Chief Justice during some of the most important years in the court's history was like as a person. But we also learn about Earl Gideon, the man whose case created the right to an attorney for anyone arrested for a crime.

Still, while I appreciate the need for a progressive history of the Supreme Court, I wish Iron's had played down his politics a little more. A more evenhanded approach that did not disparage everyone who does not share Iron's politics would have made for a better, and more convincing book.

This is a great book that tells the true story of the Constitution and the Supreme Court cases that helped shape it into a living document. However, if you are a gun toting "We the people" type you probably will not like it. If you read this book you will find that the founding fathers did not consider women, slaves or native Americans to be people. The people were the white landed gentry from little old England.

Although it drags a little at the beginning, once you get to the

history and the cases, it gets interesting. It's writtin in plain

english, except for the legal terms which are usually explained.

Someone not interested in the Supreme court probably would find

it rather boring, but then why would they be reading it? Author

writes with a pro-civil rights anti-business sentiment which

is most often justified (considering past civil rights abuses),

but it is not too overly done.

Just be ready for this slant on the cases (an opposing opinion

is not presented). All in all I enjoyed the book and think it is

well written.

I purchase his college course from Great Courses. I enjoyed the course what I have watched so far (half way through). That is why I purchased his recommended book on Supreme Court History. It is truly amazing his involvement in bringing justice to 3 Japanese American citizens who were convicted under WWII curfew and internment. Order actions. I can't wait to learn more about the 20th century and the Supreme Court. Now, Mr Irons has a significant left and liberal politic bias. Although I will tolerate it for his knowledge and teaching.

Wow !! Peter Irons, should be celebrated and congratulated. Tackles the greatest story of American hypocritical jurisprudence. From the ideology of the so-called framers of the constitution of the United States of America. Who were slaveholders, and Master hypocrites of Judeo-so called Christianity. This book should be a must read in every introductory Historical Black Colleges and Universities, and the so-called main stream university.(Schools of white supremacy).. Lastly he exposed some serious inhumane racists… Brother Peter Irons, you are true to the craft of the scales of justice.

this provides tremendous insight into how the Supreme Court functions and changes with the people seated on the court.

This book is titled as being history, but it is not history. The author uses the narrative to lecture about abstract legal ideas separated by decades or centuries from the material being treated in chapters. The narrative throughout smacks of political bias, and the author comes off as incredibly condescending towards historical figures and reading audience alike. Clearly no one on the planet can ever be as smart as the author. The entire work lacks any conformity or consistency to any historical standard.