United States, Russia, Legal History, National, Europe, Law, Government, New Deal, Franklin Roosevelt, 1933-1945, Supreme Court 

"This new history of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Great Constitutional War is a critical, revisionist portrayal of FDR's personal role in initiating, with the advice of his attorney general, Homer S. Cummings, a reorganization of the federal judiciary, or what in fact constituted a bald-faced attempt to pack the Supreme Court in 1937. No issue in domestic politics ever aroused the country's anger as did the presidential proposal to increase the size of the Supreme Court to fifteen by giving the president power to appoint a new judge for every justice over the age of 70 who refused to resign or retire. For background, the case histories which led up to this bold stroke are, for the first time, chronicled and analyzed in a setting that places the stirring events which ensued in their proper perspective. The case histories are an integral part of the historical episode popularly known as the court fight. The importance of the book's subject, the thorough documentation, its reasoned and reasonable criticism, all set forth in a lively, but lucid writing style should give this book a popular readership that reaches well beyond academia.-- Publisher description." - Voila 

Contents:
Preface -- Introduction -- The fifty-fourth attorney general -- The New Deal in court -- Black Monday -- The fate of the AAA -- Secrets and stratagems -- Toward a constitutional crisis -- Landslide -- Roosevelt's revenge -- A storm of fury -- Some bad miscalculations -- The Senate hearings -- No real mischief -- Searching for compromise -- Showdown -- Aftermath -- Epilogue. 

Includes bibliographical references (pages 565-589) and index.