Reviews and Comments

I picked up this book after Litman promoted it on her podcast, Strict Scrutiny. The writing is just as rapid and referential to pop culture as her typical speech is, which makes for a relatively engaging way to read about legal matters.

The book gives an extensive, broad overview of how the Supreme Court has wielded its power for partisan and non-democratic ends, spanning from early in our nation's history to the court as it exists under Chief Justice John Roberts (more focus given to this latest era). Litman shows that the idea of an apolitical court practising blind justic is entirely false—the court and its justices are political actors like any other official, and she details how the conservative legal movement specifically crafted a strategy around this fact to advance minority political views into the legal status-quo against popular will. She discusses how the court's decisions have affect voting rights, reproductive rights, gender equality, the capabilities of the regulatory state, and the general health of our constitutional order.

There is one aspect of the book I found sightly frustrating. Litman references a seemingly countless number of legal cases and political events; although she often gets her point across, there are many cases where almost no details beyond the conclusion of the case/outcome of the politicking.

I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to know how the court is political in nature.

Breyer argues against strong Textualism as practiced by the conservative bloc of the Supreme Court today. Instead, he argues for the method of judicial interpretation he used during his tenure on the court, which emphasizes pragmatism and "workability" of the constitution. Instead of strictly adhering to one framework, Breyer thinks judges ought to take into account the perspectives of many frameworks (including originalism and textualism, but also legislative intent, democratic principles, and the practical effects on the legal system/society).

The book includes many case studies which Breyer uses to point out the shortcomings of textualist analysis by showing how such a reading leads to unintuitive, counterproductive, or unworkable outcomes. I found the book useful to expand my understanding of canons of analysis and as a good anti-textualism argument.

A great, concise plea to advance mankind's behavior in the era of powerful technology. Much of what Szent-Györgyi discusses is still politically and scientifically relevant today, but there are cases of historical events since the books publication significantly shifting the context of the book (but mostly in interesting ways, not invalidating the core message of the text). His optimism in scientific thinking is painful to read, knowing how short we've come up.

In the appendix of my copy is a "Psalmus Humanus" along with six humanist prayers from the author.

Couple of gems, but mostly the stories are small-town character pieces of mixed quality. Not Vonnegut's finest.