Description: 1941-1953 marked the emergence of legal liberalism, in the divergent activist efforts of Hugo Black, William O. Douglas, Frank Murphy, and Wiley Rutledge. The war and early Cold War years of the Court in reality marked the birth of the constitutional order that dominated American public law in the later twentieth century. That legal outlook emphasized judicial concern for civil rights, civil liberties, and reaction to the emergent national security state. This book recounts the history of United States Supreme Court in the momentous yet usually overlooked years between the constitutional revolution that occurred in the 1930s and Warren-Court judicial activism in the 1950s.
Brief description: William M. Wiecek is a Professor of Law and Professor of History at Syracuse University, where he has been teaching since 1985. He holds a Ph.D. degree from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and an LL.B from Harvard University. He is the author or co-author of numerous books, including most recently, The Lost World of Classical Legal Thought: Law and Ideology in America, 1886-1937 (Oxford University Press, 1998), The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States (Oxford University Press, 1992), and American Legal History: Cases and Materials, 2nd ed. (Oxford University Press, 1996). He has published articles in such journals as the Supreme Court Review, the Journal of Supreme Court History, Rutgers Law Journal, Cardozo Law Review, the American Journal of Legal History, and the Journal of American History.
Review Quotes: "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