Peter Irons, acclaimed historian and author of A People History of the Supreme Court, explores of one of the supreme court's most important decisions and its disappointing aftermath
In 1954 the U.S. Supreme Court sounded the death knell for school segregation with its decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. So goes the conventional wisdom. Weaving together vivid portraits of lawyers and such judges as Thurgood Marshall and Earl Warren, sketches of numerous black children throughout history whose parents joined lawsuits against Jim Crow schools, and gripping...

A comprehensive history of the people and cases that have changed history, this is the definitive account of the nation's highest court

Recent changes in the Supreme Court have placed the venerable institution at the forefront of current affairs, making this comprehensive and engaging work as timely as ever. In the tradition of Howard Zinn's classic A People's History of the United States, Peter Irons chronicles the decisions that have influenced virtually every aspect of our society, from the debates over judicial power to controversial rulings in the past regarding...

Justice at War irrevocably alters the reader's perception of one of the most disturbing events in U.S. history--the internment during World War II of American citizens of Japanese descent. Peter Irons' exhaustive research has uncovered a government campaign of suppression, alteration, and destruction of crucial evidence that could have persuaded the Supreme Court to strike down the internment order. Irons documents the debates that took place before the internment order and the legal response during and after the internment.

From the perspective of young lawyers in three key New Deal agencies, this book traces the path of crucial constitutional test cases during the years from 1933 to 1937.