A "scathing, exuberant indictment of the many misdeeds of the nation's highest court" -- that's Jeffrey Toobin on Ian Millhiser's new book, "Injustices"

"Injustices tells the history of the Supreme Court through the eyes of the people that it has hurt the most -- the young people stripped of their childhoods, the freedmen forced into peonage, the men and women who will die needlessly if the Supreme Court guts Obamacare."

-- Ian Millhiser, about his new book, Injustices: The Supreme Court's
History of Comforting the Comfortable and Afflicting the Afflicted

by Ken

This is going to be an unusual sort of book plug -- it comes from the author. The only less impartial source of information about a book I can imagine than an author is an author's mother. But then, authors are also well-placed authorities on what their books are designed to do, and this is a special author. Anytime legal breezes blow in or around the Supreme Court, you can pretty well bet that we're going to be turning to Ian Millhiser at ThinkProgress. (Ian is the editor of ThinkProgress Justice.) We always count on Ian to set us straight, so I don't see why we shouldn't do the same thing with his new book, Injustices: The Supreme Court's History of Comforting the Comfortable and Afflicting the Afflicted, published by Nation Books.

Besides, the e-mail Ian sent out to the ThinkProgress mailing list comes with a blurb from The New Yorker's Jeffrey Toobin, our other top-tier legal guru. We'll get to that in a moment. First let's read what Ian has to say about Injustices:

Dear ThinkProgress Reader:

For the last five years, I've covered the Supreme Court for ThinkProgress. I've chronicled the justices' decision to open the floodgates to corporate election spending, and I've reported on the rash of voter suppression laws that followed after the Court gutted the Voting Rights Act. I've shared your bewilderment when the Court held that a woman's choice whether to use birth control could be given to her boss, and I've shared your terror at the prospect that the justices could rip health care away from millions of Americans.

Yet, as I explain in Injustices: The Supreme Court's History of Comforting the Comfortable and Afflicting the Afflicted, these cases are hardly anomalies in the Supreme Court's history. To the contrary, the justices of the Supreme Court shaped a nation where children toiled in coal mines, where Americans could be forced into camps because of their race, and where a woman could be sterilized against her will by state officials. The Court was the midwife of Jim Crow, the right hand of union busters, and the dead hand of the Confederacy.

Injustices tells the history of the Supreme Court through the eyes of the people that it has hurt the most -- the young people stripped of their childhoods, the freedmen forced into peonage, the men and women who will die needlessly if the Supreme Court guts Obamacare. In my coverage of the Court over at ThinkProgress, I've strived to provide clarity on what the law provides and how the justices should decide their cases in accordance with that law, but I've also strived to reach beyond arcane legal arguments to show how the Court's decisions shape the lives of millions of Americans. I bring that same ethic to over 150 years of Supreme Court history in Injustices. I urge you to check it out.

Sincerely,
Ian Millhiser

NOW FOR THAT BLURB FROM JEFFREY TOOBIN

In case you think Ian's trying to put one over on us, here as promised is Jeffrey T:

They won't be selling Injustices at the Supreme Court gift shop. Ian Millhiser's scathing, exuberant indictment of the many misdeeds of the nation's highest court is a necessary, and highly entertaining, corrective to the mythology that has always surrounded the work of the Justices.

P.S.: (1) I didn't make any effort to find out whether Ian's mother is available for comment.

(2) If you don't trust Ian and Jeffrey, there's a preview of the book available on Amazon.

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