The tenure of Earl Warren as chief justice of the United States Supreme Court (1953-69) was marked by a series of decisions unique in the history of the Court for the progressive agenda they bespoke. What made the Warren Court special? How can students of history and political science understand the Warren Court as part of constitutional history and politics? To answer such questions, nine well-known legal scholars and historians explore how each justice contributed to the distinctiveness of the Warren Court in Supreme Court history.

A judge-made revolution? The very term seems an oxymoron, yet this is exactly what the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren achieved. In Bernard Schwartzs latest work, based on a conference at the University of Tulsa College of Law, we get the first retrospective on the Warren Court--a detailed analysis of the Courts accomplishments, including original pieces by well-known judges, professors, lawyers, popular writers such as Anthony Lewis, David Halberstam, David J. Garrow, and a rare personal remembrance by Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. The Warren Court: A Retrospective begins with an examination of the Courts decisions in a variety of different fields, such as equal protection, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and criminal law. The work continues with The Justices, an intimate look at the principal protagonists in the Courts operation. Then, in A Broader Perspective, the book looks at the Court from an historical perspective, demonstrating its impact on the legal profession and jurisprudence, its international impact, and its legacy. Both readable and informative, The Warren Court: A Retrospective provides an invaluable source for anyone interested in the Court that did so much to change America.

About the United States Supreme Court during Earl Warren's term as United States Chief Justice and its involvement in politics.

When conservatives took control of the federal judiciary in the 1980s, it was widely assumed that they would reverse the landmark rights-protecting precedents set by the Warren Court and replace them with a broad commitment to judicial restraint. Instead, the Supreme Court under Chief Justice William Rehnquist has reaffirmed most of those liberal decisions while creating its own brand of conservative judicial activism. Ranging from 1937 to the present, The Most Activist Supreme Court in History traces the legal and political forces that have shaped the modern Court. Thomas M. Keck argues that the tensions within modern conservatism have produced a court that exercises its own power quite actively, on behalf of both liberal and conservative ends. Despite the long-standing conservative commitment to restraint, the justices of the Rehnquist Court have stepped in to settle divisive political conflicts over abortion, affirmative action, gay rights, presidential elections, and much more. Keck focuses in particular on the role of Justices O'Connor and Kennedy, whose deciding votes have shaped this uncharacteristically activist Court.

A study of the Supreme Court under the leadership of Chief Justice Earl Warren, from 1953 to 1969, discussing the impact of the liberal court's civil rights and civil liberties decisions on American constitutional law.

From 1953 to 1969, the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren brought about many of the proudest achievements of American constitutional law. The Warren declared racial segregation and laws forbidding interracial marriage to be unconstitutional; it expanded the right of citizens to criticize public officials; it held school prayer unconstitutional; and it ruled that people accused of a crime must be given a lawyer even if they can't afford one. Yet, despite those and other achievements, conservative critics have fiercely accused the justices of the Warren Court of abusing their authority by supposedly imposing their own opinions on the nation. As the eminent legal scholars Geoffrey R. Stone and David A. Strauss demonstrate in Democracy and Equality, the Warren Court's approach to the Constitution was consistent with the most basic values of our Constitution and with the most fundamental responsibilities of our judiciary. Stone and Strauss describe the Warren Court's extraordinary achievements by reviewing its jurisprudence across a range of issues addressing our nation's commitment to the values of democracy and equality. In each chapter, they tell the story of a critical decision, exploring the historical and legal context of each case, the Court's reasoning, and how the justices of the Warren Court fulfilled the Court's most important responsibilities. This powerfully argued evaluation of the Warren Court's legacy, in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the end of the Warren Court, both celebrates and defends the Warren Court's achievements against almost sixty-five years of unrelenting and unwarranted attacks by conservatives. It demonstrates not only why the Warren Court's approach to constitutional interpretation was correct and admirable, but also why the approach of the Warren Court was far superior to that of the increasingly conservative justices who have dominated the Supreme Court over the past half-century.

The appointment of Earl Warren as Chief Justice of the United States in 1953 marked the opening of a new era in the nation's constitutional development. As Archibald Cox points out in his Preface, during the next fifteen years the Supreme Court rewrote, with profound social consequences, major constitutional doctrines governing race relations, the administration of criminal justice, and the operation of the political process. The extent and the rapidity of these changes raise grave questions concerning the nature and function of constitutional adjudication and the proper role of the Supreme Court in the national life. In these lectures, originally given in somewhat shorter form in Honolulu in the summer of 1967 under the joint auspices of Harvard Law School and the University of Hawaii, Mr. Cox describes the main lines of constitutional development under the Warren Court. He analyzes the underlying pressures involved and the long-range institutional consequences in terms of the distribution of governmental power. The central theme of Mr. Cox's book is embodied in his examination of the American paradox that invests the judicial branch with the responsibility of deciding "according to law" our most pressing and divisive social, economic, and political questions. Although not uncritical of the grounds on which several of the court's crucial decisions have been reached, Mr. Cox comes to the conclusion that the trend of the rulings has been "in keeping with the mainstream of American history-a bit progressive but also moderate, a bit humane but not sentimental, a bit idealistic but seldom doctrinaire, and in the long run essentially pragmatic-in short, in keeping with the true genius of our institutions."

Garrow, and a rare personal remembrance by Justice William J. Brennan, Jr.