The Court at War: An Afternoon with Cliff Sloan

Join The Book Stall on Saturday, October 28 at 3:00 pm for a riveting in-store discussion with Winnetka native Cliff Sloan featuring his new book, The Court at War: FDR, His Justices, and the World They Made. Discover the inside story of how one president forever altered the most powerful legal institution in the country, with consequences that endure today. Mr. Sloan’s intimate portrait is a vivid, instructive tale for modern times. This event is free with registration. To register, please visit our website or CLICK HERE.

More About the Book: By the summer of 1941, in the ninth year of his presidency, Franklin Roosevelt had molded his Court. He had appointed seven of the nine justices, the most by any president except George Washington, and handpicked the chief justice. But the wartime Roosevelt Court had two faces. One was bold and progressive, the other supine and abject, cowed by the charisma of the revered president.

The Court at War provides a cast of unforgettable characters in the justices, from the mercurial, intellectual Felix Frankfurter to the Alabama populist Hugo Black; from the western prodigy William O. Douglas, to Roosevelt’s former attorney general and Nuremberg prosecutor Robert Jackson. The justices’ shameless capitulation and unwillingness to cross their beloved president highlight the dangers of an unseemly closeness between Supreme Court justices and their political patrons. But the FDR Court’s finest moments also provided a robust defense of individual rights.

Filmmaker Ken Burns says, “Conventional wisdom suggests we know all we need to know about FDR and the Supreme Court. Thank goodness Sloan has excavated the much more interesting and dramatic saga of the wartime Court and its eerie echoes to today.”

More About the Author: Cliff Sloan is a professor of constitutional law and criminal justice at Georgetown University Law Center. He has argued before the Supreme Court seven times and has served in all three branches of the federal government, including as Special Envoy for Guantanamo Closure. He is the author of The Great Decision: Jefferson, Adams, Marshall, and the Battle for the Supreme Court. His commentary on the Supreme Court and legal issues has appeared on television, radio networks, and in several publications, including the New York Times, Washington Post, and Slate.