"A powerful corrective to the standard narrative of the Burger court . . . should change the way that period is perceived. . . . As this important book makes clear, courts, given time, can accomplish--or demolish--a great deal by degrees, leaving their successors to finish the job."--Jeff Shesol "The New York Times Book Review"
"Ambitious and engaging. . . . Graetz and Greenhouse's work serves as an important corrective, demonstrating that the Burger court demands far more sustained scrutiny and analysis than legal scholarship has generally afforded it. Readers interested in the Supreme Court's role in American society during the second half of the 20th century will gather significant insight from this book's elegant, illuminating arguments."--Justin Driver "The Washington Post"
"When the Supreme Court unanimously ruled against President Nixon in the famous 1974 Watergate Tapes Case that doomed his presidency, Nixon cursed the justices he had appointed. The myth grew that Nixon had failed to significantly move the Court to right. In their compelling, elegantly written analysis, two brilliant legal scholars (and clear-eyed explainers) convincingly demolish that myth."--Evan Thomas, author of Being Nixon
"[A] landmark new book. . . . Thrillingly intelligent analysis of the ways the Burger Court handled the massive legacy it was handed by the Warren Court. . . .Graetz and Greenhouse are tough but even-handed, dealing equally in personalities and precedents and creating some energetic reading along the way." --Steve Donoghue "Christian Science Monitor"
"In this fresh and often surprising return to the Burger Court years, Graetz and Greenhouse show how that court, generally dismissed for failing to reverse the liberal arc of the Warren Court era, embedded significant conservative markers in areas of the law critical to consumers, women, prisoners, business, voters and others. Using the justices' papers and their own deep understanding of the Supreme Court, the authors bring to life the complex personalities and internal struggles of the Burger Court in a changing nation. And, they offer the reader an accessible bridge from the outcomes of those struggles to landmark rulings in the Rehnquist and Roberts Courts. This illuminating trip through history is well worth taking."--Marcia Coyle, Chief Washington Correspondent, The National Law Journal, and author of The Roberts Court: The Struggle for the Constitution
"This revelatory book resets how we think about the Constitution and the Supreme Court that interprets it. The Court led by Chief Justice Warren Burger is often seen as an afterthought, wedged between the Warren Court and the hard right Justices today. In fact the 1970s and 1980s set the pattern for decades of American life, on topics from campaign finance to presidential power to criminal law. With clarity and insight, Michael Graetz and Linda Greenhouse show how the often jumbled doctrines of that time helped produce the America of today."--Michael Waldman, President, Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law and author of The Fight to Vote