New or forthcoming books on the Supreme Court, including one by Justice Stephen Breyer

By Ronald Collins
on Aug 10, 2015 at 10:07 am

If you are a Supreme Court watcher, several new or forthcoming books will be of special interest to you. Coming next month will be a book (his ninth) by Justice Stephen Breyer. Here are two snippets from the publisher’s blurb about his book, The Court and the World: American Law and the New Global Realities:

Justice Stephen Breyer examines the work of the Supreme Court of the United States in an increasingly interconnected world, a world in which all sorts of activity, both public and private—from the conduct of national security policy to the conduct of international trade—obliges the Court to understand and consider circumstances beyond America’s borders. . . .

While Americans must necessarily determine their own laws through democratic process, increasingly, the smooth operation of American law—and, by extension, the advancement of American interests and values—depends on its working in harmony with that of other jurisdictions. Justice Breyer describes how the aim of cultivating such harmony, as well as the expansion of the rule of law overall, with its attendant benefits, has drawn American jurists into the relatively new role of “constitutional diplomats,” a little remarked but increasingly important job for them in this fast-changing world.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg comes in for more biographical attention in another book about her and in a joint profile of the Court’s first two female Justices. Look as well for a new book on Justice John Paul Stevens, this one having to do with his criminal justice jurisprudence.  And this fall’s crop of new books includes a volume on the Justices and their law clerks.

Interest in Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes never wanes:  two new books about him are forthcoming.  More ink has also been devoted to examining the life and times of Justice Thurgood Marshall, this time with a focus on his nomination to the Supreme Court.  Finally, a big (544 pp.) new book explores the great dissents throughout the Court’s 226-year-history.

All of these books are listed below along with yet others covering everything from two books on the Roberts Court to two scholarly volumes dedicated to examining the Court’s 2014 Term.

Eighteen new or forthcoming books:

1. Lawrence Baum, editor, The Supreme Court (CQ Press; 12th ed., October 15, 2015)
2. Wendell Bird, Press and Speech Under Assault: The Early Supreme Court Justices, the Sedition Act of 1798, and the Campaign against Dissent (Oxford University Press, February 1, 2016)
3. Stephen Breyer, The Court and the World: American Law and the New Global Realities (Knopf, September 15, 2015)
4. Irin Carmon & Shana Knizhnik, Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Dey Street Books, October 27, 2015)
5. Cato Supreme Court Review 2014-2015 (September-October 2015)
6. Adam Cohen, Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck (Penguin Press (March 1, 2016)
7. Clare Cushman & Todd Peppers, editors, Of Courtiers and Kings: More Stories of Supreme Court Law Clerks and Their Justices (University of Virginia Press, December 4, 2015)
8. Lee Epstein, Jeffrey A. Segal, Harold J. Spaeth, &Thomas G. Walker, The Supreme Court Compendium; Data, Decisions, and Developments (CQ Press, October 15, 2015)
9. Stephen Gottlieb, Unfit for Democracy: The Roberts Court and the Breakdown of American Politics (NYU Press, January 8, 2016)
10. Susan-Mary Grant, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.: Civil War Soldier, Supreme Court Justice (Routledge, August 8, 2015)
11. Richard Hasen, Plutocrats United: Campaign Money, the Supreme Court, and the Distortion of American Elections (Yale University Press, January 12, 2016)
12. Wil Haygood, Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination That Changed America (Knopf, September 15, 2015)
13. Linda Hirshman, Sisters in Law: How Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Went to the Supreme Court and Changed the World (Harper, September 1, 2015)
14. Helen J. Knowles & Steven B. Lichtman, Judging Free Speech: First Amendment Jurisprudence of US Supreme Court Justices (Palgrave Macmillan (September 17, 2015)
15. Christopher Smith, John Paul Stevens: Defender of Rights in Criminal Justice (Lexington Books, October 15, 2015)
16. Supreme Court Economic Review, Volume 23 (University of Chicago Press Journals, January 21, 2016)
17. Melvin Urofsky, Dissent and the Supreme Court: Its Role in the Court’s History and the Nation’s Constitutional Dialogue (Pantheon, October 13, 2015)
18. Artemus Ward, Christopher Brough, & Robert Arnold, Historical Dictionary of the U.S. Supreme Court (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, August 7, 2015)