FDR's Gambit

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When Franklin Roosevelt proposed adding up to six new justices to the Supreme Court in 1937, a firestorm exploded. FDR was accused of "Court packing," dictatorial ambitions, political trickery, undermining the rule of law, and undercutting judicial independence. Drawing upon extensive archival research, Laura Kalman revises the conventional wisdom by telling the story as it unfolded in FDR's Gambit. She argues that acumen, not arrogance, accounted for Roosevelt's actions. Far from erring tragically, he came very close to getting additional justices, and the Court itself changed course.