John Marshall (1755-1835), perhaps best known for consolidating the authority of the Supreme Court, was arguably the most important judicial figure in American history. John Marshall and the Heroic Age of the Supreme Court is a biography designed to explain how Marshall's ideas about law and the Constitution developed over time-how they were related to his personal life and to the major historical developments of the age. This book, with its unifying theme being the Marshall-Thomas Jefferson rivalry, combines narrative biography with constitutional historiography.