Morton Horwitz's The Warren Court and the Pursuit of Justice is a book for the layperson outlining the changes the Warren Court created in America's civil liberties jurisprudence. While the book is in no sense a polemic, Horwitz assumes the reader shares his view that what the Warren Court wrought was progress, and he criticizes the justices only when they failed to reach liberal results. Justice Byron White would have winced at the way Horwitz characterizes decisions and justices as being simply "liberal" or "conservative," and one could argue that such a politicization is a problem rather than a virtue. But ACLU members and casual students of American legal history will find the book a quick read that touches upon all of the substantial decisions in a critical period of the Supreme Court's life. --Ted Frank


The New York Times, Linda Greenhouse
Brief as the book is, it tackles a number of subtle and complex issues.


From Kirkus Reviews
Less an introduction to the Warren Court than a paean to it. Harvard law professor Horwitz developed the material for this very short book through teaching an undergraduate course on the subject. The result has little to offer readers who are familiar with the constitutional struggles of the past few decades, but may be of some use for those needing a primer, especially high-school and college students with little knowledge of the law. Horwitz finds a common biographical thread among the liberals who dominated the Supreme Court in the 1950s and '60s: Warren, Black, Douglas, Brennan, Goldberg, Fortas, and Marshall all came from ``socially marginal'' backgrounds, by reason of poverty, religion, or race. Without being reductionist, he contends that this psychological factor made the Warren Court majority more eager than previous courts to extend constitutional protection to racial, religious, and political minorities, criminal defendants, and the poor. It was the Warren Court that ruled school desegregation unconstitutional, applied the Bill of Rights to state criminal cases, compelled the states to apportion their legislatures on a ``one-person, one-vote'' basis, made dissent less dangerous by adopting Holmes's ``clear and present danger'' test for political speech, discovered a constitutional right of privacy, made it virtually impossible to prosecute obscenity cases, greatly restricted libel actions, and found that welfare benefits were an entitlement rather than merely a privilege. However controversial these examples of judicial activism were (and still are), Horwitz's approval of them is almost uncritical. Although he provides sympathetic analyses of Justice Frankfurter's advocacy of judicial restraint and Justice Black's departure from his liberal brethren over the issue of civil disobedience, Horwitz has produced a very narrow account of the Warren era. (He also, unfortunately, repeats the canard that Eisenhower traded the promise of a Supreme Court appointment for Warren's support at the 1952 Republican Convention.) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
"The men who made up the Warren Court changed America forever. Morton Horwitz has written the best accessible general history of how they did it."--Eben Moglin, Columbia Law School

"In this modest and very moving book, Morton Horwitz summarizes the achievements of the Supreme Court under Earl Warren. . . . He provides a clear and compact account of the Warren Court and its legacy, bringing an engaged sympathy but also sharp analysis and critical distance. The Court helped irrevocably to alter the practical meanings of freedom, equality, and democracy in America. This is a story of momentous decisions, and Horwitz tells it simply and well."--Robert W. Gordon, Johnston Professor of Law and History, Yale University

[An] elegant extended essay. . . . [Horwitz's] effort is not only to tell what happened during an exceptionally fruitful sixteen-year period, but to infuse those events with meaning for readers who come to them with neither basic facts nor historical context readily at hand. The effort succeeds to a notable degree."--Linda Greenhouse, The New York Times



Review
"The men who made up the Warren Court changed America forever. Morton Horwitz has written the best accessible general history of how they did it."--Eben Moglin, Columbia Law School

"In this modest and very moving book, Morton Horwitz summarizes the achievements of the Supreme Court under Earl Warren. . . . He provides a clear and compact account of the Warren Court and its legacy, bringing an engaged sympathy but also sharp analysis and critical distance. The Court helped irrevocably to alter the practical meanings of freedom, equality, and democracy in America. This is a story of momentous decisions, and Horwitz tells it simply and well."--Robert W. Gordon, Johnston Professor of Law and History, Yale University

[An] elegant extended essay. . . . [Horwitz's] effort is not only to tell what happened during an exceptionally fruitful sixteen-year period, but to infuse those events with meaning for readers who come to them with neither basic facts nor historical context readily at hand. The effort succeeds to a notable degree."--Linda Greenhouse, The New York Times



Book Description
The Hill and Wang Critical Issues Series: concise, affordable works on pivotal topics in American history, society, and politics.

The men who made up the Supreme Court when Earl Warren was Chief Justice (1953-69) changed America forever, and their decisions are still affecting constitutional law today. This overview of the Warren Court focuses on its landmark cases and enduring legacy.



About the Author
Morton J. Horwitz, Charles Warren Professor of American History and Law at the Harvard Law School, is the author of the two-volume Transformation of American Law. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The distinguished legal historian Morton J. Horwitz here considers the landmark cases that transformed American law in the post-war years. Brown v. Board of Education shattered more than a half century of school segregation; New York Times Co. v. Sullivan was a striking affirmation of the freedom of the press; and Roe v. Wade (decided after Warren stepped down, but on the basis of rulings he established) used the citizen's right to privacy as a basis for affirming a woman's right to obtain a legal abortion. Horwitz's book is enhanced by short profiles of the liberal voices on the Court: Hugo L. Black, William O. Douglas, Thurgood Marshall, William J. Brennan, Jr. (who, Horwitz argues, was perhaps the greatest justice in Supreme Court history), and, of course, the Chief Justice himself.

FROM THE CRITICS

Kirkus Reviews

Less an introduction to the Warren Court than a paean to it. Harvard law professor Horwitz developed the material for this very short book through teaching an undergraduate course on the subject. The result has little to offer readers who are familiar with the constitutional struggles of the past few decades, but may be of some use for those needing a primer, especially high-school and college students with little knowledge of the law. Horwitz finds a common biographical thread among the liberals who dominated the Supreme Court in the 1950s and '60s: Warren, Black, Douglas, Brennan, Goldberg, Fortas, and Marshall all came from "socially marginal" backgrounds, by reason of poverty, religion, or race. Without being reductionist, he contends that this psychological factor made the Warren Court majority more eager than previous courts to extend constitutional protection to racial, religious, and political minorities, criminal defendants, and the poor. It was the Warren Court that ruled school desegregation unconstitutional, applied the Bill of Rights to state criminal cases, compelled the states to apportion their legislatures on a "one-person, one-vote" basis, made dissent less dangerous by adopting Holmes's "clear and present danger" test for political speech, discovered a constitutional right of privacy, made it virtually impossible to prosecute obscenity cases, greatly restricted libel actions, and found that welfare benefits were an entitlement rather than merely a privilege. However controversial these examples of judicial activism were (and still are), Horwitz's approval of them is almost uncritical. Although he provides sympathetic analyses of Justice Frankfurter's advocacy ofjudicial restraint and Justice Black's departure from his liberal brethren over the issue of civil disobedience, Horwitz has produced a very narrow account of the Warren era. (He also, unfortunately, repeats the canard that Eisenhower traded the promise of a Supreme Court appointment for Warren's support at the 1952 Republican Convention.)