Böcker av Laura Kalman

On the face of it, the Ford-Carter years seem completely forgettable. They were years of weak presidential leadership and national drift. Yet, as Laura Kalman shows in this absorbing narrative history, the contours of our contemporary politics took shape during these years. This was the incubation period for a powerful movement on the right that was to triumph with Ronald Reagan's election in 1980. These years also marked the coming of age of the social movements of the 1960s, as their causes moved from the streets to the courts for mediation. Supreme Court decisions on affirmative action and the scope of privacy rights had immense social and political impact. The nation experienced an energy crisis, a sharp economic downturn, and a collision with fundamentalism in Iran that set the terms for coming crises. Kalman's navigation of this eventful political and social terrain is expert and riveting.

This work on the history of constitutional theory suggests that in recent years, new political and interdisciplinary perspectives have undermined the tenets of legal liberalism, and that liberal law professors have enlisted other disciplines in an attempt to legitimize their beliefs.

This account of the evolution of a New Dealer to Washington lawyer and liberal and his subsequent resignation from the Supreme Court under threat of scandal, is fleshed out by the use of personal papers and interviews whilst drawing a parallel picture of American liberalism from the 30s to the 60s.