[4] His book The American Supreme Court was the winner of the 1961 Award of the Contemporary Affairs Society.
[1] In 1966, McCloskey was named Jonathan Trumbull Professor of American History and Government at Harvard.
The book was based on his doctoral dissertation,[8] and explored conservatism in the United States from the Reconstruction era to 1910, by considering the publications of William Graham Sumner, Stephen Johnson Field, and Andrew Carnegie.
[9][10] The first edition of The American Supreme Court was published in 1961 as part of a series,[11] and described as "lucidly written, well-reasoned, and concise" by Robert J. Harris,[12] and "one of the best of a rare breed" by Paul W.
[1] Following his death, a student of McCloskey's, Sanford Levinson, continued updating The American Supreme Court.