The Great Justices, 1941-54: Black, Douglas, Frankfurter, and Jackson in Chambers

The Great Justices comes as close as any book ever has to getting inside the minds of Supreme Court jurists. And it paints a revealing picture of the often deeply ambiguous and difficult relationship between ideas and reality, between the law and the men and women who must interpret it and create it. This is the human dimension of the Court. Appreciating that dimension also helps us to discover some of the Court’s secrets. Justices are as human as the rest of us, and the Court’s work is always an interchange of ideas and individuals. Thus, personality is an important dimension of any effort to understand the Court and its role. The Supreme Court is usually seen by the public as an institution whose principal actors remain above emotion, opinion, and gossip, the better to interpret our nation’s laws.
The Great Justices
provides an amazing glimpse into a Court in which titanic egos often clash. Pulling aside the veil of decorous tradition and propriety, William Domnarski reveals the personalities that shaped one of the greatest Courts of our time.