The Birth of the Modern Constitution recounts the history of the United States Supreme Court in the momentous yet usually overlooked years between the constitutional revolution in the 1930s and Warren-Court judicial activism in the 1950s. 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 Stone/Vinson Courts consolidated the revolutionary accomplishments of the New Deal and affirmed the repudiation of classical legal thought, but proved unable to provide a substitute for that powerful legitimating explanatory paradigm of law. Hence the period bracketed by the dramatic moments of 1937 and 1954, written off as a forgotten time of failure and futility, was in reality the first phase of modern struggles to define the constitutional order that will dominate the twenty-first century.

A history of the United States Supreme Court between 1941 and 1953.

About the Author
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.

Reviews
"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
"A brilliantly done book by a master in the field. Wiecek guides us through an era that is troubled and often confusing, and he does it with a sure hand for what is important. This is a welcome and a noteworthy contribution to the Holmes Devise." - Melvin I. Urofsky, author of A March of Liberty: A Constitutional History of the United States and The Continuity of Change: The Supreme Court and Individual Liberties, 1953-1986
"William Wiecek blends research in the papers of the justices with the best insights of political, intellectual, and social history, and adds his own mature judgments to produce this superb, comprehensive, and accessible account of an often neglected period of constitutional history, demonstrating that the Supreme Court from 1941 to 1953 laid the foundations for nearly all of today's constitutional law." - Mark Tushnet, Georgetown University Law Center
"Wiecek, Congdon Professor of Law and Professor of History at Syracuse Unviersity, has written an encyclopedic study of the stone and Vinson Courts that is detailed and intellectually first-rate...it is a volume worthy of our attention and continued consultation." - The Green Bag Richard A. Paschal
"The cases that Wiecek chooses to write about he covers well and illuminatingly." - Law and History Review



Book Information
ISBN 9780521848206
Author William M. Wiecek
Format Hardback
Page Count 752
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Weight(grams) 1164g
Dimensions(mm) 241mm * 161mm * 44mm