Abortion, affirmative action, the "right to die", pornography and free speech, homosexulaity and sex discrimination; as eagerly as the Supreme Court's rulings on these issues are awaited and as intently as they are studied, they never seem to settle anything once and for all. But something is settled in the process - in the incremental approach - as Cass Sunstein argues in this text. The text lays-out and celebrates the constellation of rights - involving both liberty and equality - that now commands consensus in American law. A guide to the Supreme Court, it offers a new understanding of the American Constitution, and of the relationship between democracy and constitutionalism, and between rights and self-government.

Sunstein is among this country's most respected legal scholars [and] "One Case at a Time" reflects [his] mastery of Supreme Court law, of constitutional theory and of political science..."One Case at a Time" presents a fascinating argument: that there is a hidden majority of [judicial minimalist] Justices, that it is right in what it is doing and that it is adjudicating in a way that moves beyond the recent ideological stalemate about the Supreme Court's role...[Sunstein's] book demonstrates what a shame it is that the Clinton White House hasn't picked him to serve as a Federal judge. The Reagan and Bush Administrations put accomplished legal theorists on the bench to turn their conservative vision into legal reality. But the Clinton team has failed to follow the Reagan-Bush lead... "One Case at a Time" makes that reluctance look like a significant lost opportunity. Respectful of the political branches, mindful of the role of the Supreme Court in the whole of American government, this admirable book makes a judicious case for a philosophy of judging as a humble, difficult, essential art. The book also demonstrates that Sunstein would practice that art well. -- Lincoln Caplan "New York Times Book Review"