"Melnick’s even-handed approach to the school desegregation era offers insights into what went right and what went wrong on a very important set of policies. . .readers can take important lessons about how policymakers today can forge a better future that redeems the promise of Brown."

Education Next

"The Crucible of Desegregation offers a patchwork view of desegregation policy, revealing how administrators and judges in lower courts played a pivotal role, with remarkable achievements and setbacks alike. The book is a valuable and pragmatic resource for those interested in learning more about this history of desegregation and the court system in the US."

LSE Review of Books

"Melnick provides exhaustive evidence of American desegregation policy’s many shortcomings. . . Melnick is clear and convincing when showing how Southern de jure segregation was taken down only by a breathtaking rearrangement of institutional roles that disregarded the Constitution’s separation of powers."

The Claremont Review of Books

"The Crucible of Desegregation is tour-de-force analysis of the rise and fall of desegregation and integration. This is well-trodden terrain, but if you think you know everything worth knowing about the topic, think again. This meticulously researched, elegantly written, scrupulously fair-minded account achieves the rarity feat of reshaping our understanding of one of the epochal constitutional and social issues of our time."

David Kirp | University of California-Berkeley | author of "Improbable Scholars"

"The Supreme Court is often praised for the clarity of its vision in Brown v. Board of Education, but its subsequent decisions are clouded with ambiguity. We still do not know whether the Constitution is color blind or conscientiously seeks to perfect the racial composition of the nation’s schools. Without guidance from above, lower courts wander in a maze, and the race question, rather than resolving itself, acquires ever more political intensity. Melnick narrates this story succinctly yet with felicity, balance, and appropriate irony."

Paul Peterson | Harvard Kennedy School

"This magisterial yet compelling and thoroughly readable volume by an eminent scholar unpacks the tangled, touchy saga of U.S. school 'desegregation' with all its confusion over goals and uncertainty concerning benchmarks."

Chester E. Finn | Thomas B. Fordham Institute