The Most Dangerous Branch by David A Kaplan

The Most Dangerous Branch by David A Kaplan

In the bestsellling tradition of The Nine and The Brethren, David A. Kaplan, the former legal affairs editor of Newsweek, takes us into the secret world of the Supreme Court. He shows how too often the nine justices subvert the role of other branches of government--and how we've come to accept that at our peril.

Never before has the Supreme Court been more central in American life. It is the nine justices, rather than Congress and elected officials, who now decide the controversial issues of our time--from abortion and same-sex marriage, to gun control, campaign finance and voting rights. The Court is so crucial that many voters in 2016 made their choice based on whom they thought their presidential candidate would name to the Court. Donald Trump picked Neil Gorsuch--the key decision of his new administration. The next justice will be even more important, holding the swing vote over so much social policy. Is that really how democracy is supposed to work?

Based on exclusive interviews with the justices and dozens of their law clerks, Kaplan provides fresh details about life behind the scenes at the Court - Clarence Thomas's simmering rage, Anthony Kennedy's self-aggrandizement, Ruth Bader Ginsburg's celebrity, the petty feuding between Gorsuch and the chief justice, and what John Roberts thinks about his critics.

Kaplan presents a sweeping narrative of the justices' aggrandizement of power over the decades - from Roe v. Wade to Bush v. Gore to Citizens United. But the arrogance of the Court isn't partisan: Conservative and liberal justices alike are guilty of overreach. Challenging conventional wisdom about the Court's transcendent power, The Most Dangerous Branch is sure to rile both sides of the political aisle.

David A. Kaplan was a senior editor and legal affairs correspondent at Newsweek for 20 years. While there, he wrote several dozen cover stories on the Court and other topics. Later he was a contributing editor at Fortune, where he wrote long-form profiles of Charlie Rose, Howard Schultz, David Geffen, and Ralph Nader, among others. He is the author of the national bestseller The Silicon Boys; an account of the 2000 presidential election, The Accidental President (on which the HBO feature film Recount was based); and Mine's Bigger, about the largest sailboat in history, which won the Loeb Award for Best Business Book of 2008. These days, he teaches journalism and ethics at NYU and CUNY.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781524759919
ISBN 10	1524759910
Title	The Most Dangerous Branch
Author	David A Kaplan
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Random House USA Inc
Year published	2019-10-08
Number of pages	496
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.