ROBERT M. LICHTMAN. The Supreme Court and McCarthy-Era Repression: One Hundred Decisions. MARJORIE HEINS. Priests of Our Democracy: The Supreme Court, Academic Freedom, and the Anti-Communist Purge.

These two books have some significant overlapping, but their foci are quite different. The volume by Robert M. Lichtman gives a short synopsis of every decision rendered by the U.S. Supreme Court between 1949 and 1961 (the “McCarthy Era”) that is related to the politically repressive tone of the times. Marjorie Heins's volume, whose title is rather misleading, focuses on anticommunism and the New York public schools and colleges from about 1940 to the present, with the Supreme Court making only an occasional appearance when it issued a relevant decision. The Lichtman book has both strengths and weaknesses. The main weakness is that in trying to cover about 100 Supreme Court decisions in less than 200 pages (plus extensive footnotes and an excellent bibliography), Lichtman necessarily gives only a barebones account of individual decisions. Moreover, some of the most important rulings, such as Dennis v. United States (1951), which allowed for the prosecution of Communist Party (CP) leaders, and American Communications Association v. Douds (1950), which paved the way toward the destruction of CP influence in the trade union movement, receive no more space than far less important decisions. Necessarily then, Lichtman's book primarily serves as a handy reference for a short account of Supreme Court rulings relevant to civil liberties during the period he covers. Any reader seeking an in-depth account will need to consult other sources, such as C. Herman Pritchett's Civil Liberties and the Vinson Court (1954), Arthur Sabin's In Calmer Times: The Supreme Court and Red Monday (1999), and Michal Belknap's Cold War Political Justice: The Smith Act, the Communist Party and American Civil Liberties (1977)—the last devoted entirely to the Dennis case and its progeny.