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If the U.S. Supreme Court teaches us anything, it is that almost everything is open to interpretation. Almost. But what's inarguable is that, while the Court has witnessed a succession of larger-than-life jurists in its two-hundred-plus-year history, it has never seen the likes of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
Combative yet captivating, infuriating yet charming, the outspoken jurist remains a source of curiosity to observers across the political spectrum and on both sides of the ideological divide. But for all his public grandstanding, Scalia has managed to elude biographers―until now. In American Original: The Life and Constitution of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, the veteran Washington journalist Joan Biskupic presents for the first time a detailed portrait of this complicated figure and provides a comprehensive narrative that will engage Scalia's adherents and critics alike. Drawing on her long tenure covering the Court and on unprecedented access to the justice, Biskupic delves into the circumstances of his rise and the formation of his rigorous approach on the bench. This book shows us the man in power: his world, his journey, and the far-reaching consequences of a transformed legal landscape.
- Sales Rank: #714907 in Books
- Published on: 2010-08-17
- Released on: 2010-08-17
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.50" h x 1.02" w x 5.50" l, .94 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 448 pages
From Publishers Weekly
The combative personality of conservative judicial firebrand Antonin Scalia comes through more clearly than his philosophy in this dense biography. USA Today legal affairs reporter Biskupic (Sandra Day O'Connor) notes Scalia's contemptuous chin-flicking at the media and relaxed attitude toward torture and other controversies, but focuses on his Supreme Court tenure through a thematic survey of prominent cases. What fitfully emerges, apart from a man confident in his views, hot in his rhetoric, is his hostility to affirmative action, abortion rights and the 'homosexual agenda' and a fondness for states' rights, executive branch authority and gun-owners' rights, all justified by an originalist interpretation that hews to the bare text of the Constitution as its authors allegedly understood it. Biskupic's critical approach highlights inconsistencies in Scalia's reasoning, particularly when he went against his usual states' rights position in the Bush v. Gore decision, which settled the 2000 presidential election. But the complex, murky vagaries of Supreme Court case law are not the best format for elucidating a judicial philosophy; Biskupic gives a full account of this influential figure's doctrinaire conservatism, but the originalist doctrine itself is harder to discern. 8 pages of b&w illus. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Legal affairs reporter Biskupic brings 20 years’ experience and insight to providing a broad context to this profile of the most prominent and controversial of the current Supreme Court justices. Bright, articulate, and often confrontational, Scalia had promoted his concept of originalism, interpreting the Constitution from the original perspective of the Founding Fathers rather than as a living document adapting to contemporary circumstances. Initially, Scalia was limited to presenting his cogent and often bombastic arguments from a minority dissenter’s view, but with the appointment of conservative John Roberts as chief, some 20 years into his tenure Scalia now finds himself more often on the majority side. Yet his persona continues to mark him as an outsider. Biskupic examines Scalia’s life, including how he has come to hold his views. This is a must-read for those interested in the impact of a singular personality on our highest court—and to what end, only time will tell. --Vernon Ford
Review
“Joan Biskupic has done it again. Having hit a home run in her fine biography of the quintessential centrist justice, Sandra Day O'Connor, Biskupic has now hit it far out of the park with her elegant, insightful, and eminently readable account of the life and constitutional views of the most colorful justice on the Supreme Court's right wing. For anyone who wants to understand the most influential and interesting voice of the most powerful movement in contemporary American law, this book is a must-read.” ―Laurence H. Tribe, Carl M. Loeb University Professor, Harvard Law School
“Biskupic is an old-fashioned reporter's reporter--hard-digging, tough-minded, but even-handed. She is also a thoughtful and shrewd judge of people. She has penetrated the Supreme Court and given us a fascinating portrait of the court's most colorful and human justice.” ―Evan Thomas, editor, Newsweek
“It's hard to write a fair-minded biography of such a polarizing figure, but that's what Joan Biskupic has done with 'American Original' . . . impressively balanced and well reported.” ―Jeffrey Rosen, The New York Times Book Review
“[American Original] will stand up over time.” ―Emily Bazelon, Slate
“Intellectually rigorous. . . ‘American Original: the Life and Constitution of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia' is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand this jurist.” ―Claude R. Marx, Boston Globe
“Biskupic has written a biography filled with fire, a book almost certain to anger Scalia's fans on many pages because she offers candid assessments of his flaws, as well as his strengths. Scalia's detractors will find lots of material with which to demonize him even further.” ―Steve Weinberg, Dallas Morning News
“A gifted storyteller . . . Biskupic is tough but fair. At age 73, Scalia remains full of piss and vinegar. If you want to know where he's likely to take his colleagues and when they'll refuse to go along with him pick up ‘American Original.' Don't wait for a court order.” ―Glenn C. Altschuler, Tulsa World
“Impeccably researched.” ―Gene Warner, Buffalo News
“‘American Original: The Life and Constitution of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia' is full of strong reporting. It is scrupulously even-handed, which may irritate partisans on both sides of the Scalia divide--there are few fence-straddlers when it comes to him . . . Biskupic's larger accomplishment is to present the recent evolution of the Supreme Court through the prism of its most colorful member.” ―Jim Newton, Los Angeles Times
“It's worth checking out Joan Biskupic's new biography of Justice Antonin Scalia--American Original. . . It's the first real deep dive into his personal background (including his religion) and how it affects his decisions. Scalia is a critical figure on the Supreme Court, given its continuing shift to the right. And Biskupic does a great job in helping the reader understand where he's coming from.” ―Thomas Goldstein, Daily Beast, "Smart People Recommend"
“The book's real charm, however, lies in her treatment of the man. She traces the important influences on Scalia--the lessons from his immigrant parents, the centrality of his Catholic faith, the early professional experiences in the Nixon justice department--and offers a portrait of a man quite unlike any other judge. Especially against the decorous backdrop of the Supreme Court, Scalia stands out for his brashness in argument, his clever, sometimes contemptuous, prose and his willingness to express opinions in a variety of public forums. Biskupic acknowledges his intellectual brilliance but criticizes him for his tetchiness with the press, for his seeming inability to concede at least the appearance of conflicts of interest and for his willingness to depart from originalism--Bush v. Gore, anyone?--when it appears to serve his own political inclinations. Legal scholars have written more about Scalia than any other living Justice. Now, in terms of accessibility for the general reader, Biskupic gives the rest of us an inside look at what the fuss is all about . . . Every bit as provocative and entertaining as the man himself.” ―Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Most helpful customer reviews
97 of 105 people found the following review helpful.
Not Much Life Story
By Jeff Kelleher
If this first-ever biography of the colorful and prickly Associate Justice were a New Yorker profile, it would merit four stars; if an Atlantic Monthly feature, three. It is an accessible and compact survey of Scalia's public writings and pronouncements, and of public commentary on them. But as biography, it is disappointing.
Biskupic devotes only 21 pages to the first 38 years of her subject's life--the very period the reader is most curious about. How can this be called biography? Compare the first volume of Robert Caro's life of Lyndon Johnson-- 800 deeply illuminating pages on Johnson's first 33 years.
The book offers few glimpses of the influences that shaped Scalia's thought and temperament. Who were the teachers, priests, and professors who taught him? What courses did he take, books did he read, bull sessions did he attend, course papers and letters did he write? He did years of ROTC in school but never served in the military; why not? He spent his junior year at Switzerland's University of Fribourg in what Biskupic calls "a yearlong academic and sightseeing feast." That feastful year gets 43 words.
What was his work during his six years at the law firm of Jones, Day? Hardly a word on this. His four years as a professor at the University of Virginia get only glancing coverage.
The book is drawn almost entirely from published sources. The author did interview the Justice himself several times, and a scattering of family and acquaintances, but collectively these interviews add only the faintest coloration to the public record. Most of Scalia's friends, classmates, and colleagues are still alive, and so loquacious a man certainly has left a lot of private writings and utterances scattered about. But Biskupic did not bother to do the hard digging necessary to uncover them. She worked libraries, not the streets.
Biskupic surmises, casually and obviously, that his view of Roe v. Wade might have been shaped by his Catholic faith; and that his view of the District of Columbia's gun ban might have been influenced by his lifelong hunting hobby. Hardly profound.
Two speculations are particularly tantalizing. First, Scalia's literalist "originalism" in constitutional interpretation has a parallel in the literalist catechism of the Catholic Church. Second, as a law student he was taken with Herbert Wechsler's doctrine of "neutral principles" of constitutional law--the notion that judges should decide by applying transcendent principles that are detached from the outcome in a particular case. Both of these beg for elaboration, but Biskupic simply tosses them into a paragraph or two and moves on.
If you want a refresher on recent constitutional struggles, as expressed in Scalia's opinions, speeches, and writings, this is a useful book. If you are looking for illuminating biography, you will find, on finishing it, that you have learned almost nothing that was not already extant.
24 of 26 people found the following review helpful.
rich in fact, weak in ideas
By Joseph A. Harder
Having read this biography several times, I must largely concur with Mr. Kelleher's review. This is a good IDEA for a biography, but the end product is badly flawed. Ms. Biskupic, like many of Scalia's critics, and like many aminstream journalists who cover conservative thought, does not really engage with Scalia's ideas, or with his intellectual development. I was amazed that she does not even discuss Scalia's book A Matter of Interpretation. She talks about the influence of Catholicism on Scalia, yet does not discuss in detail what he studied at Georgetown or who he studied with. One reads constanly that Scalia graduated with honors in History. Which branch of History? Did he focus on American History or on European? Was he influenced by Georgetown's renowned and controversial Professor Carrroll Quigley? Scalia is usually seen as an "intellectual" conservative. What book and writers influenced him. We know that Clarence Thomas read Harry Jaffa and that William Rehnquist was deeply influenced by Hayek and Oakeshott. Who influenced Scalia?
In short, this book leavesa lot of questions unaanswered. It is a brilliant piece of inside reporting on court politics and personalities, but a superficial view of its subject.
15 of 18 people found the following review helpful.
Even-Handed & Illuminating
By K. N.
Supreme Court reporter Joan Biskupic has accomplished a commendable feat of narrative art: to present in an engaging yet even-handed tone the legal, political, and spiritual perspectives that inform the jurisprudence of the Court's most controversial member. Scalia has been the subject of numerous books and articles which alternately laud or condemn his influence on the Court. Biskupic eschews "taking sides" in any partisan way and offers up the closest thing we have to a measured account of Scalia's life and his approach to the law.
Particularly commendable about the book is the fact that Scalia is a sitting Justice. It's usually very difficult for an author to remain tonally impartial when she is writing a "history of the present." Yet Biskupic manages to do just that, even when considering such recent events as Scalia's duck-hunting trip with then-Vice President Dick Cheney and the 2009 New Haven firefighters case.
One way Biskupic manages this task is to cite responses to Scalia's public statements and/or opinions from a range of perspectives, "liberal" to "conservative." Another way is to highlight both the consistencies and inconsistencies with Scalia's professed "originalism." But much of the credit should go to Biskupic's own narrative style, which is the hallmark not of "objective" journalistic reporting but of measured historical analysis. Reading her book almost feels like assessing the career of a highly influential jurist from the past. That Scalia is a sitting Justice seems incidental to Biskupic's larger project of understanding his life and perspectives in rigorous historical context.
I highly recommend this book not only to students of law and the U.S. Supreme Court but also to anyone interested in civics, legal reasoning, and the art of biographical writing.
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