Balkinization: No Reviews for Wiecek?

No Reviews for Wiecek?

Stephen Griffin

As part of my research for an article on originalism I've been working on over the summer, I read the The Birth of the Modern Constitution, by Professor William Wiecek (2006). This is the latest contribution to the Holmes Devise history of the Supreme Court. It is a comprehensive constitutional history of the Stone and Vinson Courts, 1941-53. Professor Wiecek is a respected constitutional historian with many important works to his credit. Everyone familiar with constitutional history knows the importance of this period, full of newly interesting cases (WWII, after all), fascinating personalities on the Court, and new departures in such areas as civil liberties, especially religious freedom, and civil rights.

I emailed Professor Wiecek to express my admiration for his 600+ page volume, but wondered why I couldn't find any reviews. He told me that there had been only one book notice in The Green Bag.

I find this disheartening. What has happened to reviewing of important books about the law? Never mind the history journals, I'm sure they will do their professional duty. Where is the NYT? The NYRB has never been good on books about the law. But mainly, what about law reviews? My impression is that book reviewing in law journals has gone downhill. Not much of a sense of professional responsibility anymore. Lately, the annual Michigan issue seems all over the place and not much interested in conlaw books. If it's true there has been no review in Harvard, that's especially disappointing, given the historic Harvard connections with the Holmes Devise.

Maybe Cambridge University Press hasn't promoted this book enough, but consider this an endorsement. Read Wiecek!

Posted 9:14 AM by Stephen Griffin [link]

Comments:

Stephen: The issue might have less to do with book reviews, and more to do with the Holmes Devise. Unless I'm mistaken, the volumes have never really taken a foothold in the legal academy, and have never been reviewed widely.

A quick search indicates, for instance, that in the Harvard Law Review, Morty Horwitz provided a very short (6-page) review of three volumes back in 1972; John Frank an even more perfunctory review of the Swisher volume on Taney in 1975; Jennifer Nedelsky reviewed one of the Marshall volumes in 1982; and, finally, Eben Moglen wrote a very rich review of Owen Fiss's Fuller volume in 1995. That's it.

In the Yale Law Journal, there's just a short review by Lou Pollak of the Goebel volume in 1973, and a longer review of the Fiss volume in 1995.

In a footnote a few years back, Sandy Levinson promised a longer essay in which he would slam Paul Freund and the publisher for having betrayed the promise of the Devise. Don't know whether Sandy ever published that -- but perhaps he could weigh in here.

In any event, the Holmes volumes simply aren't the subject of very much discussion or debate among ConLaw types, as far as I can tell -- although my circles are hardly representative of anything. (I'd be curious whether they get more attention in history and political science departments.) You would think that they would have a prominent place on the shelves of all ConLaw profs --and that the publisher would make sure of that -- but my sense is that this is far from the case. Very odd.

# posted by

Marty Lederman : 10:34 AM

Professor Griffin clearly endorses Wiecek's addition to the Devise . . . are the rest ignored because they're not worth reading or for other reasons (I hope) ??? I remember reading a while back that a prof at American, I believe, was taking *forever* to finish his addition to the Devise (I'm pretty sure this OWH Devise).

Any insight appreciated.

# posted by

Calvin TerBeek : 1:13 PM

As far as reviews in popular press organs: It could also be that volume 12 by Wiecek in this history of the Supreme Court retails for $100 or more (slightly less if you buy it at various online outlets) and even the most high brow mainstream book review digests rarely cover academic books that retail at prices in this range. The price alone says "speciality book". I believe that it is high time that the cost of legal publications (books and even journals) come down but that is another deeply contested debate. Something to consider.

# posted by

Anonymous : 1:44 PM

Thanks for bring much-needed attention to Wiecek's volume and the issue of book reviews more generally.

To add to Marty's quick search: You might recall that G. Edward White's outstanding volume on the Marshall Court was the subject of an excellent and extensive review by Stephen Siegel in the Texas Law Review in 1989--a model of book reviewing and a very important synthesis of the literature on republicanism in its own right. Sanford Levinson reviewed White's volume in 1989 in the Virginia Law Review. Levison's review has, I believe, the extensive and illuminating discussion of Freund that Marty's looking for. The Columbia Law Review ran a short review of White (by a student), around 1989. Moreover, Randall Kennedy published an important review of the Bickel/Schmidt volume around 1985 in the Columbia Law Review.

So these volumes have not been ignored. Moreover, as Stephen acknowledges, there hasn't been time for the history journals to get their reviews of Wiecek written and published.

But as to the popular press: it's asking a whole lot for a review in the Times or even NYROB. Take NYROB, which actually reviews academic books with some frequency. They review what, 20 books per biweekly issue? That's a little more than 500 books per year. That leaves little turf for even the most important academic volumes. And those are often on cross-over topics with popular interest.

# posted by

Alfred Brophy : 5:09 PM

A subtantial review of the Wiecek volume by Brannon P. Denning of Cumberland Law School appears in the Summer 2007 issue of Law Library Journal. This was placed on the Web this week, and may be found at: http://www.aallnet.org/products/pub_llj_v99n03/2007-36.pdf

# posted by

LMA : 3:26 PM