By Jeff Shesol, W.W. Norton & Co. Inc. New York, 644 pages, $27.95
Time has dealt kindly with the memory of our 32nd president. Politicians of both parties now express admiration, sometimes reverence for Franklin D. Roosevelt. Yet in 12 years in office, Roosevelt repeatedly generated bitter controversy. In “Supreme Power,” Jeff Shesol, a recognized historian, tells of perhaps the severest instance of that controversy, the battle over the president’s unsuccessful effort in 1937 to enlarge (“pack,” opponents and some supporters put it) the U.S. Supreme Court.
