{"product_id":"the-great-dissenter-the-story-of-john-marshall-harlan-americas-judicial-hero","title":"The Great Dissenter: The Story of John Marshall Harlan, America's Judicial Hero","description":"\u003cdiv data-a-expander-name=\"book_description_expander\" data-a-expander-collapsed-height=\"280\" class=\"a-expander-collapsed-height a-row a-expander-container a-spacing-base a-expander-partial-collapse-container\" style=\"max-height: none; height: 280px;\"\u003e \u003cdiv data-expanded=\"false\" class=\"a-expander-content a-expander-partial-collapse-content\" style=\"padding-bottom: 20px;\"\u003e \u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold\"\u003eThe “superb” (\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold a-text-italic\"\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold\"\u003e) biography of an American who stood against all the forces of Gilded Age America to fight for civil rights and economic freedom: Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey say that history is written by the victors. But not in the case of the most famous dissenter on the Supreme Court. Almost a century after his death, John Marshall Harlan’s words helped end segregation and gave us our civil rights and our modern economic freedom.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eBut his legacy would not have been possible without the courage of Robert Harlan, a slave who John’s father raised like a son in the same household. After the Civil War, Robert emerges as a political leader. With Black people holding power in the Republican Party, it is Robert who helps John land his appointment to the Supreme Court.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eAt first, John is awed by his fellow justices, but the country is changing. Northern whites are prepared to take away black rights to appease the South. Giant trusts are monopolizing entire industries. Against this onslaught, the Supreme Court seemed all too willing to strip away civil rights and invalidate labor protections. So as case after case comes before the court, challenging his core values, John makes a fateful decision: He breaks with his colleagues in fundamental ways, becoming the nation’s prime defender of the rights of Black people, immigrant laborers, and people in distant lands occupied by the US.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eHarlan’s dissents, particularly in \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003ePlessy v. Ferguson\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, were widely read and a source of hope for decades. Thurgood Marshall called Harlan’s \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003ePlessy\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e dissent his “Bible”—and his legal roadmap to overturning segregation. In the end, Harlan’s words built the foundations for the legal revolutions of the New Deal and Civil Rights eras.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eSpanning from the Civil War to the Civil Rights movement and beyond, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eThe Great Dissenter\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e is a “magnificent” (Douglas Brinkley) and “thoroughly researched” (\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e) rendering of the American legal system’s most significant failures and most inspiring successes.\u003c\/span\u003e  \u003c\/div\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"a-expander-header a-expander-partial-collapse-header\" style=\"opacity: 1; display: block;\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"a-expander-content-fade\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ca href=\"javascript:void(0)\" role=\"button\" data-action=\"a-expander-toggle\" class=\"a-declarative\" data-a-expander-toggle='{\"allowLinkDefault\":true, \"expand_prompt\":\"Read more\", \"collapse_prompt\":\"Read less\"}'\u003e\u003ci class=\"a-icon a-icon-extender-expand\"\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-expander-prompt\"\u003eRead more\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e \u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Simon \u0026 Schuster","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50548256899357,"sku":"9781501188213","price":17.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0901\/5692\/5213\/files\/9781501188213.jpg?v=1761676985","url":"https:\/\/bookdelico.com\/products\/the-great-dissenter-the-story-of-john-marshall-harlan-americas-judicial-hero","provider":"Book Delico ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}