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Noah Feldman

Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR's Great Supreme Court Justices Hardcover – 20 Jan. 2011

by Noah Feldman (Author)

4.5 279 ratings

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Unprecedented in its global impact, the Great Depression sounded the death knell of unfettered capitalism. Four men - all from wildly different backgrounds, all with decidedly disparate temperments and all equally devoted to FDR - were the primary authors of what would essentially be America's new Constitution. Scorpions is the story of their personalities, their relationships and above all their ideas in the crucial years of depression and war - years in which these men created the national game plan that would save the country by rebuilding the economy and defeating the Nazis and the Soviets in turn.

It is also the story of how these men - Felix Frankfurter, Hugo Black, Robert Jackson and William O. Douglas (a Jew, a Klansman, a Yankee, and a Westerner) - advised, cajoled, used and were used by the man who brought them together and whom they all revered: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Print length

512 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Twelve
Publication date

20 Jan. 2011
Dimensions

17.78 x 5.08 x 24.13 cm
ISBN-10

0446580570
ISBN-13

978-0446580571
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Product description

Review

For intellectual heft it is hard to match Mr Feldman's portrait of America's most inscrutable institution - and the men who, sometimes despite themselves, carried it through one of history's most critical periods (The Economist)

In SCORPIONS, Noah Feldman offers a detailed account of the troubles and achievements of Roosevelt's four most notable appointees. A first-rate work of narrative history that succeeds in bringing the intellectual and political battles of the post-Rooseve (PUBLISHERS WEEKLY)

Book Description

A group biography of the relationship between FDR and four of his Supreme Court justices: Felix Frankfurter, Hugo Black, Robert Jackson, and William O. Douglas, written by one of the most brilliant legal scholars at work today.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Twelve (20 Jan. 2011)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 512 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0446580570
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0446580571
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 17.78 x 5.08 x 24.13 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 1,848,702 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 1,381 in Legal History
- 8,965 in 20th Century U.S. History
- 21,530 in Law (Books)

Customer reviews:
4.5 279 ratings

About the author

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Noah Feldman

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Noah Feldman is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard University as well as a Senior Fellow of the Society of Fellows and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a contributing writer for Bloomberg View.

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Before joining the Harvard faculty, Feldman was Cecelia Goetz Professor of Law at New York University School of Law. He was named a Carnegie Scholar in 2005. In 2004 he was a visiting professor at Yale Law School and a fellow of the Whitney Humanities Center. In 2003 he served as senior constitutional advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, and advised members of the Iraqi Governing Council on the drafting of the Transitional Administrative Law or interim constitution. He served as a law clerk to Justice David H. Souter of the U.S. Supreme Court (1998 – 1999). Selected as a Rhodes Scholar, he earned a D. Phil. in Islamic Thought from Oxford University and a J.D. from Yale Law School, serving as Book Reviews Editor of the Yale Law Journal. He received his A.B. summa cum laude in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University in 1992, finishing first in his class.

His new book, "The Three Lives of James Madison: Genius, Partisan, President" will be available on October 31, 2017 (Random House) and is available for pre-order here. He is the author of six other books including: Cool War: The Future of Global Competition (Random House, May 21, 2013), the award winning and acclaimed Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR’s Great Justices(Twelve, 2010), The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State (Princeton University Press, 2008); Divided By God: America's Church-State Problem and What We Should Do About It (Farrar, Straus & Giroux 2005); What We Owe Iraq: War and the Ethics of Nation Building (Princeton University Press 2004); and After Jihad: America and the Struggle for Islamic Democracy (Farrar, Straus & Giroux 2003). He also co-authored two textbooks with Kathleen Sullivan, titled, "Constitutional Law", 19th Edition (Foundation Press, 2016) and "First Amendment Law", 6th Edition (Foundation Press, 2016). He has worked as a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine.

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RMF

Fascinating analysis of four Supreme Court superstars.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 17 December 2019

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My law school years are far behind me, but Prof. Feldman’s wonderful book illuminates the great pleasure the law uniquely affords its practitioners: that of thinking hard-to the best of one’s ability- about how to debate and even try to solve life’s endless problems within the the shadowy but looming discipline of the Law. Read this great book and then regret, as I do, that you did not know Justices Black, Douglas, Frankfurter and Jackson.

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Lindsey Clare Gee-Turner

Good glimpse into another world...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 July 2016

I had come across some of the figures in this book elsewhere but didn't know too much about them - this is about 4 of the Supreme Court's Justices in the 1940s who shaped America really! It showed how different to British law. So many interesting points to pick up on! I'd have liked more detail in some areas but it gave you a good taster! Obviously interesting for lawyers but with hindsight who knows how tough it was at the time.

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M. A. Ramos

An Interesting Read on Judicial and Political History

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 8 January 2011

The author wrote a book on the Supreme Court justices that was appointed during the New Deal era of President F.D. Roosevelt. During his unprecedented time in office President Roosevelt was able to appoint eight of the nine justices to the highest bench in the land. Of the nine supreme court justices and those who they replaced are all briefly mentioned. But the author focuses on four of what he considers the most fascinating or influential of the sitting justices of their time. These four are justices Hugo Black, Robert Jackson, Felix Frankfurter, and William Douglas.

The author did rely on some secondary sources yet this is a well written account of the individuals that made up the supreme court and how they were able to parley their relationship with Roosevelt into a seat on the Supreme Court. The four focused on all in their own way supported the New Deal Agenda that the president wanted to implement. We read how these four liberals relationships grew and changed over time and most interesting the inner-workings of the supreme court and the tensions between personalities and ambitions that existed. From the New Deal era through World War II and to their climatic decision on Brown vs. Board of Education decision.

Though all four were considered liberals when appointed each had his own convictions which formed their core beliefs. These justices in their methods of constitutional jurisprudence did not change their own core views; the country view on what was liberal is what changed based on their decisions. And the man who started as the most liberal man on the court became what today is called conservative even though he stayed true to his intellectual beliefs in constitutional law. These differences lead to robust debates that lead to their votes and supporting their individual positions.

The author discusses some of the cases that involved these justices. As one would expect some they agreed on and on many their viewed differed due to the aforementioned differing views on how the constitution should be interpreted and or applied. Frankfurter and Jackson were proponents of judicial restraint while Douglas and Black espoused a more active and aggressive judicial view. The ramifications of their judicial activism change the country and their decisions still affect people to this very day. These four great ambitious men would never be able to pass a senate confirmation hearing in today's politically correct world and one wonders if men of their conviction, intellect, ambition and flaws will ever sit on the high court again.

2 people found this helpful

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Nicholas Stanton

worthy but dull

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 October 2014

The concept is more interesting than the execution

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