Abstract: "The dramas of the Court - both intellectual and personal - have turned on and determined the most important cases of our time: gay rights, abortion, affirmative action, crime, hate speech, advertising, and big business. They have resulted in the undoing of legislation that characterized the New Deal and had seemed unassailable for a half-century. Here, Mark Tushnet both provides a clear and accessible history of the nation's last half-century under the rule of law and shows why the next half-century and more depends on the next Court appointments." --Jacket.