In a compelling and character-driven narrative, the noted Supreme Court expert Jeffrey Rosen recounts the history of the Court through four personal and philosophical rivalries that have transformed the law - and, by extension, our daily lives. Focusing on the remarkable clashes of eight larger-than-life personalities who dominated the Court-Chief Justice John Marshall and President Thomas Jefferson; post-Civil War justices John Marshall Harlan and Oliver Wendell Holmes; liberal icons Hugo Black and William O. Douglas; and conservative icons William H. Rehnquist and Antonin Scalia-Rosen brings vividly to life the perennial rivalry between those justices guided by strong ideology and those who forge coalitions and adjust to new realities. The narrative concludes with a revealing conversation with Chief Justice John Roberts, who explains his own attempt to transform the culture of the Court in unexpected ways. The stakes, Rosen shows, are nothing less than the future of American jurisprudence. Book jacket.