My previous work, Making Civil Rights Law: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court, 1936-1961 (Oxford University Press, 1994), examines Marshall's legal career before his appointment to the federal bench in 1961. The first chapter of this book describes Marshall's route to the Supreme Court from 1961 to 1967. The remainder of the book uses Marshall's experience on the Supreme Court as a vehicle for examining the Court as a whole during his tenure. Treating Marshall and his office as lenses through which we can view the Supreme Court, I locate the Court in the historical and political context of 1967 to 1991
