It is So Ordered: A Constitution Unfolds

Burger, chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1969 to 1986, aims this brief book at nonlawyers to introduce ``some of the great cases and controversies that have shaped America's judicial, political, and economic history.'' He provides readable accounts of 14 cases, mostly fundamental early ones like Marbury v. Madison (1803) and Gibbons v. Ogden (1824). However, Burger ends his curiously incomplete book with the ``steel seizure'' case of 1952, when President Truman took over the steel industry to prosecute the Korean War, an action the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional. Thus, he mentions only in passing the seminal desegregation case, Brown v. Board of Education (1954), and ignores the other constitutional advances of the Warren Court. And he is silent on the controversies of his own era, including the landmark abortion case, Roe v. Wade. (Apr.)