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Dec 03, 2008

Jessica rated it:

WELL. How I wish I'd had the foresight, at a much younger and more capable age, to consult some kind of career counselor! If only, if ONLY someone back then had the wisdom and charity to inform me of the existence of something called "constitutional law," and advised me to study hard, behave myself, keep my mouth shut, make influential friends, and avoid leaving a drunken trail of scribbled opinions about all my personal and political views as I careened helter-skelter along a haphaza More...

55 comments like (37 people liked it)

Apr 18, 2010

Kate rated it:

3.5 stars. This book is really about the political trajectory of the Supreme Court over the past 30 years. Toobin seeks to show a gradual, unlikely shift leftward over the years of the Rehnquist Court (followed by a striking and uncharacteristically - for the institution - speedy swing back to the right since the Roberts and Alito confirmations).

Not exactly a work of rigorous scholarship, so don't read it if you want a primer on important cases (though Toobin does a good job descri More...

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

Aug 29, 2008

Peggy bill rated it:

In the past, whenever I have gotten sick or scared about the direction of politics in this country, I have comforted myself with the idea that our governmental balance of power mediates abrupt shifts to the right (I am not worried about abrupt shifts to the left, as the country is generally too far to right already). I didn’t have hope in the Supreme Court, but I did have faith in their moderating effect on law and society.

That was until the presidential election of 2000. I was dis More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Oct 04, 2007

Ira rated it:

Toobin's book, as mentioned in some of the other reviews, is highly readable, captivating and contains very good summaries of many of the important Supreme Court cases of the last few decades. Perhaps as important is his ability to write about the Jurist's personalities and their judicial philosophy providing the reader with the thought processes that go to work behind the decision making.

The inner workings and day to day activity of the Court was something I found quite interesting More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Feb 08, 2008

m rated it:

"This book is based principally on my interviews with the justices and more than seventy-five of their law clerks," author Jeffrey Toobin writes in his notes that close the book. "The interviews were on a not-for-attribution basis -- that is, I could use the information provided but without quoting directly or identifying the source."

If you read the book back-to-front -- like the apocryphal politicos who look for their names in the index before reading a book -- y More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Jan 25, 2008

David rated it:

This is an excellent book. Toobin exhibits all the qualities one could want in a guide to the Supreme Court: he is smart, knowledgeable, engaging, witty, and writes clearly and fluidly.

This is a well-organized, well-written book on a fascinating and important subject. Remarkably, it is never dull - parts I found particularly notable were his account of the Court's role in the 2000 election debacle, and his explanation of how Sandra Day O' Connor became the most influential justice o More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 13, 2007

Michael rated it:

The book offered some good (and at times, juicy) insights into the Court that I was not previously aware of. It is a compelling tale and analysis of the Court’s recent history from prominent cases to the nominations of the justices to judicial politics.

The unfortunate side effect of this was again feeling the anguish that accompanied some vile and lawless decisions; most of all, Bush v. Gore. The naked desire on the part of the five that made the majority in that case to act as spee More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 06, 2009

Seth rated it:

Interesting survey of the modern supreme court's history and personalities. The author pretends to write balanced even handed biographical sketches of a number of supreme court justices during the Bush years. He has a hard time veiling his distaste for conservative ideology while praising "moderate" justices like O'Conner for her "diplomatic" and "pragmatic" judicial view. He seems to spend by far more time on her than all the others combined. He believes that s More...

4 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 25, 2008

John rated it:

This book was published in 2007 and already seems a tad dated. The author suggests in the prologue that what he calls the conservative counterrevolution has resumed and hints that it might be one presidential appointment away from victory.
I began reading this just after Sen. Obama became President-elect Obama, so there doesn't seem to be any possibility of a rightward drift in the court for at least the next four years.
Nonetheless, this book offers a fascinating look at the Supreme C More...

1 comment like

Mar 05, 2011

Caroline rated it:

A fascinating look at the Supreme Court and its justices.

I learned a lot (not that I was too knowledgable to begin with) about the ins and outs of the modern-day Supreme Court, from the procedures to the personalities that make it up. Before reading it, I expected Toobin to begin his narrative early in American history, so I was pleasantly surprised that it dealt with the Court's most recent history. I also appreciated how Toobin constructed his narrative, with a good mixture of an More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Sep 10, 2008

Armand rated it:

I’m not sure exactly what it says about me that the first book I picked up post-Bar Exam was Toobin’s accounting of the modern Supreme Court; regardless, I’m glad that I did. This well-researched accounting of Rehnquist’s reign is a fun survey of the politically and socially significant cases over the last thirty years. All the issues are here: abortion, the death penalty, affirmative action, privacy, Congress’s power to regulate commerce, the role of foreign law, the war on terror, and, of cour More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jul 31, 2008

Nate rated it:

The author discusses the Court from about 1980 to 2007. He wants to show how politics influences the rulings of the Court, but while reading the book I was struck by the degree to which politics had influenced his writing. He wears his bias on his sleeve, which makes this book a less than reliable source of Court information. He portrays the justices with whom he disagrees as petty, rude ideologues, while portraying the justices with whom he agrees as compassionate, intelligent, and most importa More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 24, 2008

Tracy rated it:

I had given this book to my partner, who hadn't read it. . . So I picked it up.

It feels really strange to say this was a guilty pleasure, but it was!

What, a non-fiction work about the Supreme Court a guilty pleasure??? Well, it was! It is extremely accessible (perhaps too accessible?), and the position Toobin takes on any issue coincides pretty closely to mine, so that made it even easier to read.

The general pictures of the book is an insider's look at the Sup More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 11, 2009

Stewart rated it:

A juicy must-read for any SCOTUS buff. Toobin presents a wonderfully entertaining and titillating portrait of the nine justices that graced the Reinquist Court from the early 1990s to the mid-2000s, while simultaneously weaving throughout his book the more sober legal implications at stake in the many high profile cases that this Court took on over those years. And they are all here, the culture war cases of abortion rights, gun rights and gay rights; the First Amendment cases of freedom of sp More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 16, 2008

Andrew rated it:

More of a liberal rant about the Roberts Court than an impartial history or analysis. It is aggravatingly and stupendously biased. When my blood cools perhaps I will read some more.

(For the record, I am neither a knee-jerk liberal nor an arch-conservative; I am an independent with libertarian leanings. However, in the realm of the law, my feelings align much more with "conservatives", in that I believe that judicial restraint must be the sine qua non of the legal system. T More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Feb 28, 2008

Kirsti rated it:

Fascinating (though left-leaning) explanation of how the backgrounds and personalities of the nine Supreme Court justices affect American life and culture.

Probably the most interesting part, unsurprisingly, is about Roe vs. Wade. Justice Blackmun wrote the opinion based on viability of the fetus and on a Constitutional right to privacy. O'Connor believed Roe was sound based on the privacy argument but contended that technology would change the viability issue. (So far, it hasn't.) Gi More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 17, 2008

Kevin rated it:

Toobin provides an informative if not provocative glimpse inside the inner workings of the Court, a branch sometimes overlooked but perhaps wielding the most power out of the three. Prior to reading, I could probably only name about half the justices and paint their ideology in broad strokes, so by interpolating major decisions with personal profiles Toobin dramatically increased my own familiarity with the Court. To be sure, Toobin writes for a popular audience by eschewing more technical cases More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 30, 2008

Damon rated it:

This book gives a nice overview of the Supreme Court justices of the last 20 years and their major decisions. It is a light, enjoyable read with enough information to keep the reader interested, but perhaps doesn't go into as much depth about some subjects as I would like. The description of how the Court shifted to the right, then to the left, then took a hard right with the Bush (W) nominations was laid out nicely, and the process (or lack of) that went into Bush's and Clinton's nominations More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 28, 2007

Jeff rated it:

Jeffrey Toobin’s The Nine is an incredibly well written book. If you’re a follower of the Supreme Court and acquainted with terms like Casey, Lawrence, or Hamdan you won’t be able to put the book down. If these cases are new to you, then you are in for quite an education on the true workings of the third coequal branch of the federal government. One criticism of Toobin’s style is that he doesn’t go into enough detail on the legal reasoning or merits of the cases. The book reads more like More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 24, 2007

John rated it:

I picked up this book figuring "well, I should learn something about the supreme court, since I'm woefully ignorant", and fully expected to lose steam after 10 pages. Holy. Crap. This is an absolutely immersive and fascinating read. I now feel like I have a deeply personal or at least passingly jurisprudential understanding of each of the justices that have served on the supreme court from the mid-seventies up through the present. I have a vastly richer understanding of the legal More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 28, 2009

Lois rated it:

A fascinating, readable account of the Supreme Court and its inner workings. Profiles of the justices and accounts of cases dealing with affirmative action, abortion, gay rights, separation of church and state, and Bush vs. Gore. Toobin is a staff writer for the New Yorker and legal analyst for CNN. Especially interesting re. influence of Federalist Society and the radical right wing of the Republican party.

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Aug 13, 2009

Jason rated it:

The Nine tells the story of the Supreme Court over the last 20 or so years. Toobin gives an in-depth look at the personal histories that shaped many of the Court's landmark decisions in that period. I think one has to be politically inclined to really enjoy this, and I would warn conservatives that Toobin has a slight liberal bent. (He also writes for The New Yorker.)

Toobin's breakdown of legal procedures and theory is accessible without oversimplifying. He also does an excellent job More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Sep 22, 2008

Michael rated it:

Before this book, I don't think I could've rattled off the names of the nine justices. Now I'm nursing a terrible crush on Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It's a gripping read, and Toobin does a terrific job making a dense topic pleasurable. My only beef is that the cast of characters is so dense, it would've helped to either be twenty years older or have a brief bio section in the back of the book to elaborate on their various roles.

In the midst of reading The Nine I had a chance to visit the More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 19, 2008

Loren rated it:

A breezy and slanted view of recent happenings at the Supreme Court. Easy read and some good information. In my estimation, it most likely will not have much to interest those people not already fascinated by the court, but also will fail to interest buffs because it doesn't offer much they won't already know. The only lasting takeaway I got from the book was more about Toobin than the Court. More specifically that Toobin loves O'Connor and hates George W. Bush. It was an OK read, but not r More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 06, 2011

Jack added it

Great book on the recent decade of the Supreme Court. Toobin provides the perfect balance between tracing important court decisions and telling the personal stories of the justices.

The most prominent arc of the book is that of the liberal to conservative transition of the ideological composition of the court. The "Federalist Society," started during the Reagan era, sought to actively promote conservative agendas in the realm of judicial appointments as a reaction against liberal domin More...

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Feb 05, 2009

Bookmarks Magazine added it

The Nine is a welcome addition to the spate of recent Supreme Court histories (see Jan Crawford Greenburg's Supreme Conflict, ***1/2 May/June 2007). Informative and authoritative, Jeffrey Toobin's account draws on exclusive interviews with the principals (one critic cited a possible breach of secrecy) and offers colorful anecdotes about the members of the Court. The most important parts of the book explore Sandra Day O'Connor's critical swing votes, Clinton's impeachment hearings, and the Court'

More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 03, 2009

Joe rated it:

Writing about the Supreme Court should be fascinating, since the cases brought before the justices steer our country into new realms of thought. The justices merely pass judgement though on an issue that is at the forefront of American thought. They don't really change the way we think, as Toobin sort of argues here, they merely give our thinking a legal imprimatur. The justices themselves are mostly boring and politically motivated people, which doesn't make for a robust read. I would have More...

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Jan 23, 2012

Irvin rated it:

As someone that has only vaguely paid attention to the Supreme Court in the past, I found this to be a highly educational book. Eminently readable, it takes the journalistic tack of focusing on the personalities of the Court, and using the decisions as sort of background material to illuminate the decision-making dynamics at play.

The story primarily revolves around how the Court came to be "taken over" by conservatives in the Bush Era. While it frequently notes that most co More...

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Dec 09, 2011

Sarah rated it:

This book goes through the later years of the Rehnquist court and into the early years of the Roberts court. I think the best part about it was that it showed a very human, interesting side of the justices - they seem so far removed from the general public and I feel like I know so little about them personally, but after reading this book, I really got a sense of their individual backgrounds and personalities. I want Ginsburg and Stevens to be my grandparents - they are so adorable and nice and More...

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Sep 30, 2011

Taylor rated it:

As a political junkie I've always understood that a President of the United States (POTUS)can cement his legacy far beyond his term in office by appointing justices to the Supreme Court. The lifetime appointment -as specified by the Constitution -allows them to shape the ideological boundaries of our country for the next generation. The steep implications of such power have largely politicized the appointment process and in the last 30 years it has become a hallmark issue in most political cam More...

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