All in all a disappointing and often confusing book. The historical account of the Warren Court is fine, as it goes, and if you don't know anything about what the Warren Court was and what it did, this book may help with that. But there were already accounts of this sort available; and Powe's justification for writing a new one -- that he wanted it to act as some sort of corrective against the popular view of the W.C. (personified here by Owen Fiss) as an autonomous revolutionary body -- seems unconvincing, considering how unpersuasive his case against Fiss ultimately is. Indeed I wouldn't be surprised to find Fiss someday citing Powe's book as evidence in favour of his own position. Add to that the serious problems with the writing (it's like a Brian de Palma action film: every once in a while there's a brilliant set piece, but then you have to lumber through dull exposition until you get to the next one) and you end up with a book that should have been fascinating, but that is, at best, mildly interesting.

The dust jacket blurbs call the substance of this book, "definitive," "seminal," "the best in a generation," and "a tour de force." The prose is called, "elegant," "lively, at times riveting." They weren't kidding. The book is great.