Pratt (law, U. of Notre Dame) argues that the years that White served as Chief Justice marked a period in which the court moved from traditional textual interpretations towards an acceptance of the assertion of future Justice Holmes that words are nothing more than "the skin of a living thought". Examining the court's majority decisions and minority dissents chronologically, Pratt explores the ways that economic, international, and other changes in American society forced the court to interpret the Constitution in circumstances vastly changed from the time of its framing.

In The Chief Justiceship of Warren Burger, 1969-1986, Earl M. Maltz offers a comprehensive summary and analysis of the Supreme Court's impact on American law and government during Burger's tenure. Undoubtedly one of the most interesting periods in Supreme Court history, the Burger Court generally holds a place in America's judicial memory as a centrist or mildly conservative institution that followed the liberal constitutionalism of the Warren Court and preceded the conservative ideology of the Rehnquist Court. Maltz demonstrates, however, that under Burger the Court's ideological transition...

An assessment of the high courts leadership and rulings during the Great Depression era