The Taft Court

Making Law for a Divided Nation

Robert C. Post

The Taft Court offers the definitive history of the Supreme Court from 1921 to 1930 when William Howard Taft was Chief Justice. Using untapped archival material, Robert C. Post engagingly recounts the ambivalent effort to create a modern American administrative state out of the institutional innovations of World War I. He shows how the Court sought to establish authoritative forms of constitutional interpretation despite the culture wars that enveloped prohibition and pervasive labor unrest. He explores in great detail how constitutional law responds to altered circumstances. The work provides comprehensive portraits of seminal figures such as Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. and Louis Dembitz Brandeis. It describes William Howard Taft’s many judicial reforms and his profound alteration of the role of Chief Justice. A critical and timely contribution, The Taft Court sheds light on jurisprudential debates that are just as relevant today as they were a century ago.

Robert C. Post is the Sterling Professor of Law at Yale Law School. He served as the sixteenth Dean of Yale Law School from 2009 to 2017. He specializes in constitutional law, with particular emphasis on the First Amendment. His book For the Common Good: Principles of American Academic Freedom (with Matthew W. Finkin) has become the standard reference text for the meaning of academic freedom in the United States.

Advance praise

‘A stupendous scholarly achievement, and a miraculous recreation of the mind of the Court as it stood on the brink of a revolution in governance: the New Deal ... The result is a fully three-dimensional rendering of a Court whose ambivalence and uncertainties have lessons for today - perhaps most importantly, in its struggles to preserve the independence and authority of the institution itself.’ Louis Menand, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Metaphysical Club

‘As public attention scrutiny questions the work and very legitimacy of the U.S. Supreme Court, Robert Post’s magisterial book arrives with grace and clarity, shedding welcome light on the Court of a century ago, immersed then as now in contested politics and distinctive personalities...Offering thematic and biographical insights as well as comparisons with earlier and later periods, this book makes vivid forgotten fights and decisions while showing how the Taft Court set in motion powerful practices and the majestic Courthouse itself.’

Martha Minow, 300th Anniversary University Professor, Harvard University

UK publication November 2023

US publication January 2024

9781009336215 Hardback

£220.00 | $250.00 USD | $280.00 CAD

At a glance

• Provides the authoritative history of the Supreme Court from 1921 to 1930

• Helps clarify modern constitutional debates about how to interpret the Constitution

• Uses untapped archival material

UK publication July 2023

US publication October 2023

395 Pages

9781009255691 Paperback

£22.99 | $29.99 USD | $33.95 CAD

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