In this superbly written account, Lane, a senior editor at The Washington Post, has drilled down into one of the most pivotal events that marked the waning days of Reconstruction: the massacre of perhaps as many as one hundred freedmen by an overwhelming force of heavily armed whites in rural Louisiana.

What took place at Colfax was a de facto coup. The mostly unarmed dead were citizens attempting to protect their democratically elected local Black town government; their killers were vengeful whites, many of whom were battle-tried Confederate veterans. Apart from the pounding account of the battle and massacre, I found Lane’s dissection of its political aftermath fascinating.

Colfax became the fulcrum on which the legal subversion of Reconstruction turned. As Lane amply shows, attempts to prosecute the killers failed when in a series of cases the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that only states, not the federal government, could prosecute… show more.

Written by sitting United States Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Turning Pages tells the inspiring story of the author's early life. Justice Sotomayor's beautiful spirit shines through as she recounts her early struggles to learn English, her fear of the daily injections needed to control her diabetes, and how she overcame these and other challenges. Sotomayor credits her love of books and reading for her many accomplishments. As an added bonus, the book includes plenty of personal photographs, showing scenes and people from the author's childhood, family, and friends. This is a lovely, personal, uplifting work—and not at all the celebrity book you might expect.

This is a wide-ranging, thought-provoking, accessible, informed, lively, and convincing economic history of the “long” 20th century (1870 to 2010). 

Among its many narratives, the book shows how “thirty glorious years of social democracy” ended around 1975 when the U.S. and other economies in the global north took “the neoliberal turn” in favor of relying more on the market to organize society. 

That history is essential context for understanding why the U.S. Supreme Court, beginning in the late 1970s and 1980s, relaxed the “structural era” antitrust rules in place since the 1940s, which had emphasized skepticism about growing concentration and the conduct of large firms in concentrated markets. 

The book also emphasizes the importance of technology-driven economic growth for human well-being. That perspective helps make the case today for economic policies that promote competition among firms, which fosters productivity and growth.

In just a few hundred pages McCloskey presents an historically focused examination of the conditions under which the Supreme Court succeeds and fails. 

Beautifully written, The American Supreme Court is aimed at an educated general audience. In discussing many of the Court’s most famous decisions it succeeds in demystifying the workings of the Court. First published in 1960, and now in its 6th edition, the book is a classic.

When I pick up a Courtney Milan historical romance, I know I will be hit in the heart with a story that is as insightful as it is moving.

The only question was which of her books to include in this list!

I chose The Duke Who Didn’t because it explores class, race, and gender roles in the delightful setting of a small town in the English countryside hosting an annual sports festival.

The plot reckons with the aristocrat’s responsibility to his people, the challenges and joys of a working-class community, and the exploitation of non-British identities for profit.

And because it is a Courtney Milan novel, it does so with plenty of clever tropes and swoon-worthy romance!

Lucas Powe’s magnificent study focuses on the relationship between the Supreme Court and elites throughout American history. 

The Court, Powe argues, is not an independent institution dedicated to protecting the rights of the disadvantaged. Rather, it works in tandem with elites to further their interests. The book is beautifully written and persuasively argued.

This is one of my absolute favorite novels. It's an older book, and it's so well written.

The story revolves around the life of Delan Walsh, who is at first a salty-talking Medal of Hero Marine Gunnery Sargent, then a Supreme Court Justice, a monk, and finally, the Pope.

I loved the extraordinary detail in every phase of this story. I especially learned a great deal about the US Supreme Court, and for me, a non-Catholic, the amazing and intimate insights into the Vatican were the best. I highly recommend this one, as it is both entertaining and insightful.

How do Supreme Court justices make decisions? Law students are taught that justices apply a consistent and principled jurisprudence to examine the facts of the case before them, precedent, and the statue or constitutional provision at issue. 

Segal and Spaeth argue that this understanding is a myth.  Rather, they argue that Supreme Court justices base their decisions on their attitudes, values, and political preferences. Using the highly reliable US Supreme Court Judicial Data Base, compiled by Professor Spaeth, their analysis explains and predicts Supreme Court decisions with a stunning degree of accuracy. 

Their conclusion is that debates over originalism, judicial activism, judicial restraint, and the like are simply a distraction that hides the true reason justices decide cases.

This book taught me about the history of the regulation of abortion in the United States from the 19th century to the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, assuring women’s right to abortion, and its recent Dobbs v. Jackson decision overturning it.

The book also helped me understand why the issue of abortion is never settled in the United States, whereas it is settled in many other countries, including Israel, where I grew up. The book tells the stories of many women who were and continue to be among the leaders in the movement to restrict abortion rights, but it left me wondering why.

Professor Wolf wrote a breezy and well-informed account of how zoning got the approval of the US Supreme Court in 1926. The definitive case, Euclid v. Ambler, was almost struck down, but the intrepid attorney for Euclid, Ohio, James Metzenbaum, managed to get a rare rehearing and saved the day. The case is nearing its centennial, and not everyone will be celebrating. Suburban zoning is now blamed for a host of modern problems, some foretold by the lower-court opinion that was rejected by the Supreme Court: “In the last analysis, the result to be accomplished [by Euclid’s zoning] is to classify the population and segregate them according to their income or situation in life."