Includes bibliographical references (p. 293-341) and index.; The genesis and nature of judicial power -- The establishment of the right to decide : 1789-1810 -- The Marshall Court and the shaping of the nation : 1810-1835 -- The court under Taney : the natural history of judicial prestige -- Constitutional evolution in the Gilded Age : 1865-1900 -- The judiciary and the regulatory state : 1900-1937 -- The modern court and postwar America : 1937-1959 -- Civil liberties, civil rights, and the Supreme Court -- Judicial monitoring of the new American welfare state -- Epilogue: the court of today and the lessons of history.;