Archibald Cox, Nixon's nemesis, explains the history of the Supreme Court and its consitutional interpretations. Read this book and discard simplisitic notions about liberal 'activist' judges. Perhaps the most activist judges in US history were the conservatives that frustrated Roosevelt's New Deal legislation. Was John Marshall an 'activist' when he asserted the right and duty of the Supreme Court to 'say what the law is' in Marbury v. Madison? That case established the rule of law as much as any other single act in Anglo-American legal history.

Most lawyers probably need to read this book (I am one), but it is very accessible to the lay reader as well. ( )