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Brennan vs. Rehnquist: The Battle for the Constitution. By Peter Irons. (New York: Knopf, 1994. xiv, 380 pp. $27.50, ISBN 0-679-42436-9.)
The objectives of the book are: to analyze the battles and judicial philosophies of these leaders of the liberal and conservative wings of the Supreme Court between 1972 and 1990 when they overlapped on the Court; to explore the impact of their competing values on the outcomes of those battles; to use their words to offer a history of debate on the Court; and to provide an approach to constitutional litigation, viewed as a form of politics. Peter Irons analyzes one hundred non-unanimous cases in which justices William J. Brennan Jr. and William H. Rehnquist disagreed, which involved the Bill of Rights and the equal protection and due process clauses of...