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A review by chauisauth
The Making of a Justice: Reflections on My First 94 Years by John Paul Stevens
challenging
informative
medium-paced
3.5
A historically important book, with gaps unfilled
To get the obvious out of the way, Making of a Justice is an important book, when one looks at it from a history perspective, because this is a source first hand thoughts and opinions (of which there are quite a few) of one of the most important people to serve on the nation's highest court.
When one looks at the title however, they naturally end up expecting a lot more from the book than they get. The book is largely a chrnology of his years, and in my humble opinion, misses out by a mile on the emotional quotient. For example, when he is nominated to the 7th Cir. or even to the Supreme Court, the lives of those around him change as much as his does- but there is no mention of any of that; there is very limited mention of his daughters and so on.
The second part of the book is a term by term discussion of cases that he considered important, and that is great, but again, barring a few instances, it lacks the personal touch, thereby giving "Reflections on my first 94 Years, a miss. By virtue of that subtitle, it should also have included his experience of writing Five Chiefs, his first memoir that focussed on the five Chiefs he knew in his time, and the more controversial, Six Amendments, etc., which it did not.
Despite all that, this is a book any law geek would like to have in their collection.
When one looks at the title however, they naturally end up expecting a lot more from the book than they get. The book is largely a chrnology of his years, and in my humble opinion, misses out by a mile on the emotional quotient. For example, when he is nominated to the 7th Cir. or even to the Supreme Court, the lives of those around him change as much as his does- but there is no mention of any of that; there is very limited mention of his daughters and so on.
The second part of the book is a term by term discussion of cases that he considered important, and that is great, but again, barring a few instances, it lacks the personal touch, thereby giving "Reflections on my first 94 Years, a miss. By virtue of that subtitle, it should also have included his experience of writing Five Chiefs, his first memoir that focussed on the five Chiefs he knew in his time, and the more controversial, Six Amendments, etc., which it did not.
Despite all that, this is a book any law geek would like to have in their collection.