Choice
(May 1, 2005)
Review of The Most Activist Supreme Court in History: The Road to Modern Judicial Conservatism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004).
The great strength of this book is its careful examination of judicial activism
from the New Deal forward. Keck (Syracuse Univ.) places the decisions of the
Supreme Court in broad historical perspective and shows how the recent
conservative activism of the Rehnquist Court fits within an unbroken activist
tradition that has held sway since the 1930s, if not before. Keck argues that,
although those opposing specific Court decisions decry its "activism" and
counsel restraint, once in power they come to see the value of using the Court's
enormous power to advance their own agenda--hence the perpetually activist
Court. Keck has no ax to grind and presents a balanced account that traces the
lines of judicial activism, but he notes the irony in the fact that
long-standing opponents of the Warren Court who counseled restraint later
embraced conservative activism. The book is also a nuanced account of judicial
decision making. Keck shows that "ideas"--doctrine, consistency,
precedent--matter, and demonstrates that such concerns largely explain the
staying power of many Warren and Burger era precedents. If you read just one
book on the history of the modern Supreme Court, this should probably be the
one. Summing Up: Essential. Undergraduate, graduate, and law students alike as
well as the general public. M. M. Feeley University of California, Berkeley