Brown v. Board of Education and the Civil Rights Movement

by Michael J. Klarman

A splendid account of the Supreme Court's rulings on race in the first half of the twentieth century, From Jim Crow To Civil Rights earned rave reviews and won the Bancroft Prize for History in 2005. Now, in this marvelously abridged, paperback edition, Michael J. Klarman has compressed his acclaimed study into tight focus around one major case-- Brown v. Board of Education --making the path-breaking arguments of his original work accessible to a broader audience of general readers and students.

In this revised and condensed edition, Klarman illuminates the impact of the momentous Brown v. Board of Education ruling. He offers a richer, more complex understanding of this pivotal decision, going behind the scenes to examine the justices' deliberations and reconstruct why they found the case so difficult to decide. He recaps his famous backlash thesis, arguing that Brown was more important for mobilizing southern white opposition to change than for encouraging civil rights protest, and that it was only the resulting violence that transformed northern opinion and led to the landmark legislation of the 1960s. Klarman also sheds light on broader questions such as how judges decide cases; how much they are influenced by legal, political, and personal considerations; the relationship between Supreme Court decisions and social change; and finally, how much Court decisions simply reflect societal values and how much they shape those values.

Brown v. Board of Education was one of the most important decisions in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court. Klarman's brilliant analysis of this landmark case illuminates the course of American race relations as it highlights the relationship between law and social reform.

Acclaim for From Jim Crow to Civil

"A major achievement. It bestows upon its fortunate readers prodigious research, nuanced judgment, and intellectual independence."
--Randall Kennedy, The New Republic

"Magisterial."
-- The New York Review of Books

"A sweeping, erudite, and powerfully argued book...unfailingly interesting."
-- Wilson Quarterly

Genres: History, American History, Law, Read For School

296 pages, Paperback

First published July 2, 2007

About the author

An American legal historian, and constitutional law scholar, Michael Klarman is the Kirkland & Ellis Professor at Harvard Law School.

Reviews

[jojo]

one more week!

[Jaime · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good history -- good enough that it made me want to read Klarman's longer take on the subject. You get a real sense of the impact of Brown v. Board from Klarman's perspective (but maybe not a perspective that everyone would agree with -- Klarman has a very clear argument to make, that Brown wasn't as positive for the progress of civil rights as others would have you believe).

A good book for lawyers/law students, this is also written in such a way that those less familiar with the courts will have no trouble following it.

[Thomas Ray]

Brown v. Board of Education and the civil rights movement : abridged edition of From Jim Crow to civil rights : the Supreme Court and the struggle for racial equality, Michael J. Klarman, 2007

This is the author's 2007 abridgement of his 2005 /From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality/. The abridged book focuses on Brown v. Board.

Library-of-Congress KF4757 .K58 2007 Historical Society Library



/From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality/, Michael J. Klarman

Library-of-Congress KF4757 K58 2006 Law Library

Library-of-Congress KF4757 K58 2004 Law Library and College Library Rm. 1191.

[D]

school

[Lily · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great comprehensive look at the case and its direct and indirect effects and place in history. He made a good case for Brown v. Board as distinct from the direct action of the Civil Rights, pretty interesting.