Battle For The Marble Palace: Abe Fortas, Earl Warren, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and the Forging of the Modern Supreme Court

1968 was a particularly tumultuous year in American history. The escalating war in Vietnam, the riots during the Democratic Convention, and the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy left a scar on the national consciousness. But one great battle that took place during this time is barely recalled. The nomination of Abe Fortas for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court launched an all-out cultural war that would determine the course of major court cases for years to come. Award-winning judicial journalist and Supreme Court reporter Michael Bobelian brings us right into the halls where this fierce battle raged, pitting Lyndon Johnson and the Democratic Party against Richard Nixon and the GOP in a fight that ended in the defamation of Fortas, the first Jew ever nominated for the highest judicial office. Written in vivid detail, the narrative unfolds in a series of dramatic vignettes, from the landmark ruling of Brown vs. Board of Education to the chaos on the floor of the Democratic Convention. Readers are given a behind the scenes look at the camaraderie among the retiring Chief Justice Earl Warren, Lyndon Johnson, and Fortas—and will witness, with them, the rise of Richard Nixon as the fate of the liberal court is decided.

• Oliver Wendell Holmes: A Life in War, Law, and Ideas
• The Making of a Justice: Reflections on My First 94 Years
• Confirmation Bias: Inside Washington's War Over the Supreme Court, from Scalia's Death to Justice Kavanaugh
• The Chief: The Life and Turbulent Times of Chief Justice John Roberts
• First: Sandra Day O'Connor
• The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation
• Clarence Thomas and the Lost Constitution
• Appeasement: Chamberlain, Hitler, Churchill, and the Road to War
• Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century
• The Company They Keep: How Partisan Divisions Came to the Supreme Court