New from Oxford University Press:
Ideas with Consequences: The Federalist Society and the Conservative Counterrevolution (Jan. 2015), by Amanda Hollis-Brusky (Pomona College). A description from the Press:
There are few intellectual movements in modern American political
history more successful than the Federalist Society. Created in 1982 to
counterbalance what its founders considered a liberal legal
establishment, the organization gradually evolved into the conservative
legal establishment, and membership is all but required for any
conservative lawyer who hopes to enter politics or the judiciary. It
claims 40,000 members, including four Supreme Court Justices, dozens of
federal judges, and every Republican attorney general since its
inception. But its power goes even deeper.
In Ideas with Consequences,
Amanda Hollis-Brusky provides the first comprehensive account of how
the Federalist Society exerts its influence. Drawing from a huge trove
of documents, transcripts, and interviews, she explains how the
Federalist Society managed to revolutionize the jurisprudence for a wide
variety of important legal issues. Many of these issues-including the
extent of federal government power, the scope of the right to bear arms,
and the parameters of corporate political speech-had long been
considered settled. But the Federalist Society was able to upend the
existing conventional wisdom, promoting constitutional theories that had
previously been dismissed as ludicrously radical. As Hollis-Brusky
shows, the Federalist Society provided several of the crucial
ingredients needed to accomplish this constitutional revolution. It
serves as a credentialing institution for conservative lawyers and
judges and legitimizes novel interpretations of the constitution that
employ a conservative framework. It also provides a judicial audience of
like-minded peers, which prevents the well-documented phenomenon of
conservative judges turning moderate after years on the bench. As a
consequence, it is able to exercise enormous influence on important
cases at every level.
A far-reaching analysis of some of the most controversial political and legal issues of our time, Ideas with Consequences is the essential guide to the Federalist Society at a time when its power has broader implications than ever.
A few blurbs:
"Ideas have consequences because they develop in social networks of
power and influence. In this impressive work, Amanda Hollis-Brusky shows
how the Federalist Society network of lawyers, judges, scholars, and
activists successfully pushed American constitutional law to the right.
This book is an important contribution to the study of constitutional
change." --Jack M. Balkin, Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and
the First Amendment, Yale Law School
"A valuable,
well-researched addition to the growing literature on the conservative
legal network. Rich in detail, thoughtful in execution." --Michael
Greve, George Mason University School of Law
More information is available
here.
