"Peter Irons brings to the history of the Supreme Court the "human touch" (San Diego Union) of the first-person stories of his own classic book, The Courage of Their Convictions. This sweeping account of the Supreme Court begins with the debates over judicial power in the Constitutional Convention of 1787 through to its controversial rulings on slavery, racial segregation, free speech, school prayer, abortion, and gay rights."--BOOK JACKET.

"Irons provides sketches of every justice from John Jay to Stephen Breyer and portraits of such legal giants as John Marshall, Roger Taney, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Hugo Black, Earl Warren, and Thurgood Marshall. He also recounts the arguments of such noted advocates as Daniel Webster, John W. Davis, Archibald Cox, and Laurence Tribe.

But the people who stand in the foreground of this vivid historical mural are ordinary Americans like Dred Scott, Homer Plessy, Lillian Gobitas, Norma McCorvey, and Michael Hardwick."--BOOK JACKET. "A People's History of the Supreme Court weaves together revealing biography, accounts of momentous cases, divergent judicial approaches to the Constitution, social and political history, and first-person stories of litigants both famous and obscure."--BOOK JACKET.