The Antagonists: Hugo Black, Felix Frankfurter and Civil Liberties in Modern America [Hardcover]

James F. Simon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1989

James F. Simon has captured the rarely seen world of the Supreme Court where larger-than-life rivalries and personalities have an impact on the decisions that shape our lives. 8 pages of photos.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

From 1939, when he joined the Supreme Court, until his retirement in 1962, Justice Frankfurter often engaged in vociferous arguments with Justice Black over the interpretation of constitutional law. Simon reveals how their olympian arguments shaped American law during the 23 years they served together. Tracing their very different backgrounds--Black, a rough-hewn populist senator from Alabama, was once a member of the Ku Klux Klan; Frankfurter, an Austrian-born Jew, became a Harvard law professor--Simon explains why initially they were bitter judicial enemies, yet developed a mutual respect that eventually turned into friendship. The author analyzes the cases in which the two men were most passionately involved, with Black leading the Court's "activist" wing and giving special attention to the protection of the civil rights of minorities, while Frankfurter concentrated on preserving the integrity of the judicial system itself. This is a scholarly work yet accessible to lay readers. Dean and professor of law at New York Law School, Simon is the author of Independent Journey: The Life of William O. Douglas.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

New York Law School Dean Simon has written a lucid, probing, and vibrant account of how the lives and careers of the two most influential Supreme Court Justices in the last 50 years intertwined and clashed. Except during World War II, when Black supported government restrictions on freedom, the former Southern senator and Ku Klux Klan member became the most forceful spokesperson of Bill of Rights' absolutism, often injecting his politics into a decision. Challenging him was Frankfurter, a liberal political activist who, once he was appointed to the Court, strongly espoused judicial restraint, focusing on narrow legal and procedural issues and avoiding broad political statements. Yet, as Simon shows, these "antagonists" had grudging respect for each other and, especially during their later Court years, became legal allies and supportive friends, both leaving significant legal legacies. Baker's book covers some of the same territory as Mark Silverstein's Constitutional Faiths: Felix Frankfurter, Hugo Black and the Process of Judicial Decision Making (Cornell Univ. Pr., 1984), but this is more readable, broader in scope, and makes use of new information.
- Jack Forman, Mesa Coll. Lib., San Diego
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 312 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First edition. edition (October 1, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671477978
• ISBN-13: 978-0671477974
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,775,228 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A good examination of two great justices, December 25, 2003

By 

R. Price "caesar_42" (Liverpool, New York) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Antagonists: Hugo Black, Felix Frankfuter and Civil Liberties in Modern America (Paperback)

Here, James Simon presents a concise (260 pages) treatment of the relationship between Hugo Black and Felix Frankfurter. These two justices were the greatest of their age, they defined the debate over constitutional law and most scholars were lined up behind one or the other justice. Both were placed on the Court by FDR in the late 1930s and they dealt with the change from the older property/federalism focus of the Court to the individual rights era. Simon begins with brief biographical sketches of each justice and than he examines a variety of cases over their 25 years of service together to show their different approaches to civil liberties.

This is a good book but not a great one. It is best for a new comer to the Court's history. Simon provides a good overview without getting bogged down in points of dispute or too much analytical analysis of individual cases that would easily confuse those without backround in the subject. The book is an easy read and will illuminate the Court's postwar history without confusing the unfamiliar reader. Those familiar with the subject will find little new in this book, but, even so, the anecdotes are entertaining and provide a different perspective to familiar cases.