Vaulting ambition : FDR's campaign to pack the Supreme Court / Michael Nelson.

"This book is about Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1937 effort to pack the Supreme Court. Unlike most work on the subject, Michael Nelson's focus is more on the president's decisions than on the Court's responses. It analytically narrates what FDR was doing (or choosing not to do) in response to these developments as they occurred. While keeping Court-packing front and center, Nelson embeds the effort in FDR's larger campaign to direct American government and politics in pursuit of his desire to entrench the New Deal lastingly in several of the country's major political and governmental institutions: Congress, the Democratic Party, and the executive branch, as well as the Court. It was an understandable effort: the Republicans had dominated all three branches for varying but considerable lengths of time. In the end, the president's effort was unevenly successful"-- Provided by the publisher.