CENTER HOLDS: The Power Struggle Inside the Rehnquist Court
by By Simon, James F.
Category: Law , General

In an unprecedented inside account of the struggle for the soul of the Supreme Court during the Reagan and Bush years, James F. Simon draws on personal interviews and confidential court papers to reveal the battle to preserve the center against attacks from the court's right wing. He focuses on crucial issues in American law - abortion rights, racial discrimination, First Amendment freedoms, and capital punishment - to chronicle the most intense confrontations between the old liberal order and the emerging conservative majority. The Center Holds is a vivid, behind the-scenes look at how the justices fought - sometimes diplomatically, sometimes with bare-knuckled determination - for the soul of the Rehnquist Court, and of how, in the end, the center held.