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The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court
By Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong
Simon & Schuster 2005, 592 pages
$12.21 paperback

The Brethren examines the Burger Court in the 1970s, during the Nixon through Reagan Administrations. Originally published in 1979, The Brethren is an “eye-popping look into the closed world of the Supreme Court under then-Chief Justice Warren Burger,” said Edward Lazarus in the Washington Post (where Woodward famously worked along with Carl Bernstein during Watergate). “Through interviews with several justices and dozens of former law clerks, the authors captured the personalities, rivalries, politics and principles that drove the court’s decisions.”

The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court
By Jeffrey Toobin
Anchor 2008, 480 pages
$10.85 paperback, $9.99 Kindle

The Nine surveys the Rehnquist and Roberts Courts, from the Reagan Administration onward. During this period, the justices “wrestled with abortion, affirmative action, the death penalty, gay rights, and church-state separation,” said Publishers Weekly. “Despite a Court dominated by Republican appointees, Toobin (a legal journalist) paints not a convervative revolution but a period of intractable moderation.” He considers the Court’s intervention in the 2000 election between Bush and Gore “inept and unsavory.”

Supreme Conflict: the Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the United States Supreme Court
By Jan Crawford Greenburg
Penguin 2008, 368 pages
$10.88 paperback, $9.99 Kindle

Supreme Conflict covers the Rehnquist and Roberts Courts during the George W. Bush Administration. It focuses on the retirement of Sandra Day O’Connor in 2005, the death of William Rehnquist, and the appointments of John Roberts and Samual Alito. Greenburg also dishes out the “crash-and-burn” nomination of Harriet Miers.

Other books about the U.S. Supreme Court:
3 Histories of the U.S. Supreme Court (mini-reviews)
2 Radical Views of the Supreme Court (mini-reviews)