(Random House, $26)
This “succinct, snappy” history of the Supreme Court from Sandra Day O’Connor goes light on big insights, said Michiko Kakutani in The New York Times. The court’s now-retired first female justice prefers talking about 1803 more than any of the landmark decisions from her own 25-year tenure. Yet her book succeeds on its own terms—as an account of how an American institution very gradually acquired power and influence from “startlingly humble and uncertain beginnings.”
The early court clearly didn’t command much respect, said Russell Berman in The Hill. Before asserting its standing as a coequal branch of government in 1803’s Marbury v. Madison decision, the court was once blocked from convening by a partisan Congress. The justices didn’t even have a permanent home until 1935, holding sessions at various times in New York’s Merchants’ Exchange, Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, and a private home in Washington. Early justices were openly political, some even running for elected office while serving. The court’s customs have also changed dramatically: In 1818, Daniel Webster waxed poetic for hours, comparing his client’s plight with Julius Caesar’s; today, he’d be interrupted after a sentence or two. O’Connor does share some opinions about past judges: Her reverence for Oliver Wendell Holmes contrasts sharply with her view of James McReynolds, a New Deal–era crank who made no secret of his loathing of Jews and black people. Even his peers, she says, skipped his funeral.
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If only O’Connor’s writing had more energy, said Jay Wexler in The Boston Globe. In trying to make her stories accessible, she adopted “an exceedingly straightforward, textbook-like” prose style. But she has packed her pages with fine anecdotes, touching on everything from court-cafeteria seating customs to the bone-crushing handshake of her former peer Byron White. “For those who want a brief, accessible history of the nation’s highest court, narrated by a true historical figure, look no farther.”
