The Supreme Court: An Essential History By Peter Charles Hoffer, William James Hull Hoffer and N.E.H. Hull University of Kansas Press $34.95

Book details history of U.S. Supreme Court

For more than two centuries, the U.S. Supreme Court has provided a battleground for nearly every controversial issue in U.S. history.

In The Supreme Court: An Essential History, a veteran team of talented historians, including UGA Distinguished Research Professor of history Peter Charles Hoffer, delivers the most readable, astute and up-to-date single-volume history of this venerated institution. The book proves to be as engaging for general readers as it is rigorous for scholars.

The book chronicles an institution that dramatically evolved from six men meeting in borrowed quarters to the most closely watched tribunal in the world.

Underscoring the close connection between law and politics, the authors highlight essential issues as well as cases and decisions within the context of the times in which the decisions were handed down.

Deftly combining doctrine and judicial biography with case law, the authors demonstrate how the justices have shaped the law that, in turn, has shaped the nation.