Glass and Gavel: The U.S. Supreme Court and Alcohol

(Hardback)

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In Glass and Gavel, noted legal expert Nancy Maveety has written the first book devoted to alcohol in the nations highest court of law, the United States Supreme Court. Combining an examination of the justices participation in the social use of alcohol across the Courts history with a survey of the Courts decisions on alcohol regulation, Maveety illustrates the ways in which the Court has helped to construct the changing culture of alcohol. Intoxicating liquor is one of the few things so plainly material to explicitly merit mention, not once, but twice, in the amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Maveety shows how much of our constitutional lawSupreme Court rulings on the powers of government and the rights of individualshas been shaped by our American love/hate relationship with the bottle and the barroom. From the tavern as a judicial meeting space, to the bootlegger as both pariah and patriot, to the individual freedom issue of the sobriety checkpointthere is the Supreme Court, adjudicating but also partaking in the temper(ance) of the times. In an entertaining and accessible style, Maveety shows that what the justices say and do with respect to alcohol provides important lessons about their times, our times, and our constitutional cocktail of limited governmental power and individual rights.

Reviews

In Glass and Gavel, Nancy Maveety succeeds admirably in stirring rigorous historical scholarship on Supreme Court decisions regulating alcohol together with a cultural history of how Americans enjoyed imbibing liquor in different eras. The result is a refreshing cocktail that reveals how the Supreme Courts decision-making has both shaped and been shaped by our drinking habits and social attitudes toward alcohol consumption. Entertaining anecdotes about the Justices liquors of choice provide a zesty twist to this enlightening book. -- Clare Cushman, Supreme Court Historical Society
"Nancy Maveety has written a gem of a book that simultaneously entertains while offering fresh insights into the development of American law, culture and politics. By ingeniously combining an amusing look at the drinking habits of individual justices on the U.S. Supreme Court with a survey of the Courts decisions on alcohol regulation, Maveety tells a fascinating story of the relationship between alcohol, law and larger social and cultural changes in American history. From the role that political saloons played in the rough-and-tumble of early American democracy, to that of speakeasies during the prohibition era, to how hipster craft bars are replacing local dive bars during todays debate over urban gentrification, Maveety demonstrates the critical role of alcohol regulation and law plays in the development of American public life." -- Cornell W. Clayton, Washington State University
[Maveety} traces the justices' drinking habits through time and the court's voluminous alcohol-related jurisprudence in her informative and thoroughly entertaining history * Washington Independent Review of Books *

Author Bio

Nancy Maveety is professor of political science at Tulane University, specializing in U.S. Supreme Court studies, judicial decision making, and comparative judicial politics.