Few chapters in American judicial history have enjoyed as colorful a past as has the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Created in 1891, its
jurisdiction now encompasses California, Oregon, Nevada, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Arizona, Hawaii, and Alaska. David Frederick has mined archival
sources, including court records and legal papers throughout the West and in Washington, D.C., to document the Ninth Circuit’s first fifty years. His
findings are much more than a record of the court, however, for they also provide a unique social and cultural history of the West.
Frederick portrays the West’s most important judicial institution with clarity and intelligence, reminding us that the evolution of the Ninth Circuit
both reflected and affected the dramatic changes occurring in the West during the court’s early years. This is a book that will appeal not only
to lawyers, but to historians, sociologists, and general readers as well.