Editorial Review

A tiny, ebullient Jew who started as America's leading liberal and ended as its most famous judicial conservative.A Klansman who became an absolutist advocate of free speech and civil rights.A backcountry lawyer who started off trying cases about cows and went on to conduct the most important international trial ever.A self-invented, tall-tale Westerner who narrowly missed the presidency but expanded individual freedom beyond what anyone before had dreamed.

Four more different men could hardly be imagined.Yet they had certain things in common.Each was a self-made man who came from humble beginnings on the edge of poverty.Each had driving ambition and a will to succeed.Each was, in his own way, a genius.

They began as close allies and friends of FDR, but the quest to shape a new Constitution led them to competition and sometimes outright warfare. SCORPIONStells the story of these four great justices: their relationship with Roosevelt, with each other, and with the turbulent world of the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War.It also serves as a history of the modern Constitution itself.

... Read more

Reviews

Court Battles
The author has cherry-picked the four most interesting Supreme Court justices from the eight men that President Rossevelt appointed to the high bench. This legal account really follows the tenure of Robert Jackson (1941-1954) as he interacts with fellow justices Hugo Black, Felix Frankfurther, and Wiliam Douglas. It is an arbitrary time period chosen by the author, but it is climaxed by the historic Brown vs. Board of Education decision and Justice Jackson's death. The narrative alternates between the constitutional theories of each of the justice's and between their brilliant but competitive minds. The book combines dueling legal arguments, New Deal politics and clashing personalities into an absorbing narrative of the World War Two era and beyond.

I doubt even the author realizes how good this book is - Finest book ever written about the Supreme Court !!!!


By way of disclosure I am a private scholar who has studied the interplay of power among different institutions and entities, whether it is government, corporations, or other power groups. I have been a member of the Supreme Court Historical Society for many of the last 30 years and I have been fortunate to have developed personal relationships with many associate justices and two Chief Justices. Having said that, I am simply amazed at the wonderfully expertly written, fascinating, and breathtaking book that Feldman has written.


His anecdotes and historical references are both brilliant and factual. He has truly captured the essence of the Supreme Court and its stormy relationship with FDR during a critical period of American history. This was during the 1930's and for the next thirty years. This is a book about 5 egos, four of them justices, and one President, and the interplay between them during 3 decades. The first part of the book is devoted to a fast sweeping biography of 4 associate justices all of whom were appointed by the patrician Franklin Roosevelt.


The Players in this book:


Felix Frankfurter

Brilliant beyond anyone's understanding, he was the product of a poor family living in the slums of New York. He went to the City College of New York, and although it is not mentioned in the book, City College at that time was considered better than Harvard because the Ivy League was limiting Jewish enrollment intentionally. This allowed City College at one point to have more Nobel Prize winners than Harvard.

After graduation, Frankfurter put together some money and went on to Harvard Law where he excelled. Ultimately he developed mentors like Henry Stimson, an absolutely legendary power broker in Washington who served several Presidents including FDR as Secretary of War. Frankfurter is without question one of the intellectually most gifted people to ever serve on the Court.


Robert Jackson

Jackson was born dirt poor, so poor in fact, he could not afford an undergraduate education, and so he apprenticed to be a lawyer with a Jamestown New York law office. While working, he decided to pursue a year of formal education at the Albany New York Law School. He was folksy, clever, with a fabulous speaking delivery, exercised common sense and made a fortune before risking it all on a bank during FDR's first days in office.


Hugo Black

Black did a 2 year program at the University Of Alabama School Of Law. He was self-guided, extremely well read and understood that in the 1920's, the power was with the Ku Klux Klan, and so he joined in 1923. It helped him with his rise to power in Alabama and then he abruptly left the organization. It haunted him the rest of his life. He joined the Supreme Court in 1937, and became one of the most outspoken proponents of freedom, and free speech during the century.


William O. Douglas

Raised on the West Coast in Washington, he became a Yale Law School professor in his 20's. Accepted at Harvard Law, he went to Columbia Law instead. This man also knew how to be mentored. He came under the guidance of Robert Maynard Hutchins who graduated Yale Law in 1925 and immediately became a professor of law. Two years later Hutchins becomes dean of the school at 28 years of age. He then brings Douglas to Yale to be right in the center of things. Douglas would then be mentored by Joe Kennedy, JFK's father. Joe Kennedy would introduce Douglas to FDR, and thus a rocket ship ascent began for the future associate justice.


You need to understand who these players were to determine if you want to read this book. What the author clearly demonstrates is how these four individuals who on and off for thirty years would be friends and enemies would go on to reshape our modern interpretation of the Constitution, and the laws under which we live. Every major law and judicial event of the 20th century came through their hands for interpretation and lawfulness.


Their joint influence is not exceeded by anyone including Presidents. Just look at a short list of some of the seminal events they were involved in:


* The concept of Judicial Restraint

* Clear and Present Danger Case

* Dennis v. United States - The right or non-right to advocate the overthrow of the United States

* Judgment at Nuremburg - The right of the world to judge the implementers of Hitler's final solution. Associate Justice Robert Jackson presided.

* Brown v. Board of Education - Outlawing the separate but equal doctrine created by the Plessy v. Ferguson decision. Justice Jackson went through four different drafts of this new interpretation. While very ill at the time, Justice Jackson found it excruciatingly difficult to render a unanimous opinion. He went directly to the Court from a hospital bed to render support for the earthshaking decision the Court published.

* The Rosenberg Case



What you will gain from reading this book:


You will understand our country, and more importantly the true genius of the founding fathers in creating an independent Supreme Court. You will be awed by the intellectual genius of some of America's greatest minds dedicated to an interpretation of our laws. Even when you disagree with them, you will be struck by the quality of their thinking.


This is not about liberal versus conservative, which is what we see today. I have known many of the great liberals as well as the conservatives on the Court, and I am impressed by both types. My own personal demand on sitting justices is that they are people of absolute integrity, and extraordinary intellects, and for the most part we have been blessed by both from the right and the left.


Author Noah Feldman has given us a rare glimpse into some of the most interesting personalities of the 20th century. You will also get to know Tommy the Cork Corcoran, one of the most powerful legal players in the 20th century. You will meet Abe Fortas, perhaps the most influential associate justice of the 20 century. This is a man who sat in Lyndon Johnson's cabinet meetings, not at the table, but back several feet by the window. He would take it all in, and then when alone with the President dissect the whole meeting, and tell President Johnson what to do. I doubt LBJ could have remained in office through 1968 without the solid advice rendered by Abe Fortas.


In summary, if you have any interest in the Supreme Court at all, or how government works, this book should be at the top of your list. I simply could not put it down, and thank you for reading this review.


Richard C. Stoyeck

Conflict on the FDR Supreme Court
There are a number of books and articles that discuss conflict between Supreme Court Justices, including the four Justices at the center of this fine study: Felix Frankfurter (1882-1965); Robert Jackson (1892-1954); Hugo Black (1886-1971); and William O. Douglas (1898-1975). Collectively, these Justices served between 1939 and 1975. However this book is unique in several ways that advance our understanding of the Court during this period. At about 500 pages, the author is able to paint a more complete picture of the Justices and their Court interaction than shorter studies. Each Justice is introduced, in terms both of his pre-Court career and his relationship with FDR. So by the time the author discusses their Court interaction, the reader has a particularly good feel for each Justice as an individual. Unlike most other studies, the author devotes probably most attention to Robert Jackson, an almost forgotten figure today who is soon to be the subject of a major biography by Professor John Q. Barrett. This focus on Jackson, former Attorney General, whom Justice Brandeis considered the finest Solicitor General he had seen, who later served as lead American prosecutor at Nuremberg, and who wrote some of the finest opinions in the Court's history, enhances the study enormously.

The book also sheds light on the other three Justices as well. The much criticized Frankfurter, who went from being the leading Court liberal to outright conservative, is assessed in ways that allow the reader to understand why the shift to an activist Court left Frankfurter behind, rather than a shift in his own judicial restrainist philosophy. A perceptive discussion of Black and the development of his incorporation and textual philosophy of interpretation helps fill out an understanding of this key Justice. Equally important as his revival of Jackson is the author's rehabilitative portrait of Douglas, driven by political ambitions until 1948, when he emerges as a "great justice" and theoretician of new constitutional rights (such as privacy) and opponent of the Vietnam war. As a corrective to the "Wild Bill" approach to Douglas, the author's analysis is most welcome. We are reminded of why Douglas was so vital a Justice during his tenure in dealing with issues such as the flag salute cases, Japanese relocation, the HCUA, and the Rosenbergs.

On top of all this, the book is a solid analysis of some of the leading cases in our constitutional history during this period. The discussions of "Brown," the Steel Seizure and "Dennis" cases are particularly perceptive. Another focus is the intellectual approach to judging each man employed. Some issues of judicial philosophy are raised, for example Jackson's pragmatic approach (promoting the effective functioning of the government) and Alexander Bickel's "counter-majoritarian difficulty." The bizarre Black-Jackson feud that erupts while Jackson is at Nuremberg is skillfully dissected and explained. There is much more of marked value in the book, supported by 46 pages of helpful endnotes, a 12 page bibliography, and some useful photographs. While one can quibble with the author's perhaps excessive opinions of Douglas and Jackson, and some of his other judgments, in the process one can learn a tremendous amount about these four unique individuals, the Court they made, and our constitutional history.

A Great Book about the mid-20th century Supreme Court
FDR appointed nine Supreme Court justices including the elevation of Harlan Fiske Stone to Chief Justice. The collection of individuals who orbited around FDR during the New Deal and World War II and those who appointed to the Court are an amazing list of influential, intelligent, and inspiring people who helped shape America. This book focuses on four of FDR's Supreme Court nominees: Hugo Black, an Alabama Senator; Felix Frankfurter, one of the nation's foremost authorities on the Court who knew FDR from the Wilson Administration; William Douglas, the SEc Chairman who could never truly end his love affair with presidential politics; Robert Jackson, the fast rising Solicitor General, Attorney General, and prosecutor and Nuremberg.

Noah Feldman traces the rise of FDR as well as these four individuals. The author tells us of their careers, beliefs, and interaction prior to their court confirmations and then their struggles once there. It is a political, constitutional, and personal history of the United States largely between the 1930s and 1960s. You will learn about the wheeling and dealing behind presidential and vice-presidential nominations, the constitutional history of many monumental Supreme Court decisions largely culminating in Brown v. Board of Education, and the personal friendships, rivalries, and outright conflicts at play.

In addition to the main cast of four justices and FDR, major players include political insider and New Dealer Tommy "The Cork" Corcoran, short term Supreme Court Justice James Byrnes, Attorney General Francis Biddle, Democratic insider Robert Hannegan, and many others who colored our country's history.

Despite having read a fair amount about the Supreme Court during these times and even some biographies of the nominees, I learned a great deal from reading this book. Unlike other treatments, the author really gives Douglas his due as an important thinker on the court. Many other books dismiss Frankfurter as a liberal who shifted right on the court, but that is really only a small part of his story told here. Jackson's pragmatism made him harder to pigeonhole and his ambition always left him wanting something else such as the position of Chief Justice or the presidency. Hugo Black invented modern day originalism, though of course he bent over backwards for certain decisions, such as Brown v. BOE, to meet it.

FDR's years as president were impactful enough. But Noah Feldman shows that they were even farther reaching than we thought, coloring the Warren Court, Justice Brennan's liberal jurisprudence, and many of the constitutional questions the Court is still dealing with today involving privacy and the Bill of Rights as it affects the states.

Spectacular Readable Legal History!
Feldman has written a spectacularly excellent history of the Supreme Court FDR made, the Supreme Court that transformed American jurisprudence and shaped it into what it is today. Feldman writes a kind of history that is all too rare -- addictively readable stories of real human beings who shape Constitutional doctrine and made history in the process. Frankfurter, Douglas, Black, and Jackson fought with one another, an opinion at a time, a personal affront at a time, and gave us all the Constitution that now protects free speech, the rights of minorities, and counts the Bill of Rights as the center of the Constitution rather than an appendage, the Constitution that grows, developes, is anything but static. Others will write in detail about the contents of this book, I won't. I will simply say that for anyone who is even mildly interested in Constitutional law in our time, this is a wonderful read for the lay person, the law student, or the skilled practitioner -- a wonderful reminder that although we say we are a nation of laws, not men, it is men who make the laws we live by, and fallible all too human men who interpret and apply it.

The origins of modern constitutional law
It seems as if there's a veritable slew of good books about Supreme Court justices this year. The latest, Noah Feldman's Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR's Great Supreme Court Justices, focuses on four of Franklin Roosevelt's appointees: Felix Frankfurter, Hugo Black, Robert Jackson, and William O. Douglas.

Each of these justices is fascinating and could merit an individual biography (and there are biographies on each). By writing a joint biography, however, Feldman is really able to compare and contrast these men and their jurisprudence. Frankfurter was the activist law professor who was reluctant to exercise judicial review. Hugo Black, a former KKK member, became a noted civil libertarian and read the constitution literally. Robert Jackson, a small-town lawyer and later Nuremberg prosecutor, usually judged cases with an eye towards pragmatic policy solutions. William O. Douglas pined for political office but settled for preaching liberal values. Together, these men developed or promoted the modern constitutional doctrines of judicial restraint, originalism, pragmatism, and liberalism.

Outside the legal realm, these four justices often fought and bickered to a degree startling for four liberals appointed by the same president. Robert Jackson, who at law schools is portrayed as a reverential figure, got into a petty argument with Black over whether the latter should recuse himself in a case involving a former lawyer partner. Jackson even took his dispute public, sending cables from Nuremberg to impugn his colleague. Frankfurter viewed Black as an intellectual lightweight and relied on a network of mentees to conduct historical research against Black's legal philosophy. Douglas comes off as boorish, especially to his law clerks. However, there are some heartening moments too, such as when Frankfurter defends Jackson against the latter's former ungrateful law clerk, William Rehnquist.

I haven't been a fan of Feldman's past work, particularly the lightweight The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State (Council on Foreign Relations Book). However, I think he gets Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR's Great Supreme Court Justices just about right. For law students like me, I can recognize some of the cases and legal debates to which the book refers. It certainly furthered my understanding of these cases. Perhaps best of all, having a passing familiarity with these justices, I was still genuinely shocked by some of the book's anecdotes (particularly the petty fueds). However, it's generally accessible enough for any reader interested in American history to understand and enjoy.

My only "criticism" of Scorpions is that it's not long enough to do the subject full justice. I know, that's a common faux criticism. The main narrative essentially ends with Jackson's death in 1954, after Brown v. Board. However, Feldman alludes to tantalizing hints of how the other justices behaved afterwards. For example, Black and Douglas, despite being ideological allies during the 1950s, stopped speaking to each other in the late 1960s. Yet, Feldman doesn't really explain why. I felt like the book could really have benefitted from just a few more pages.

Overall, I'd highly recommend this for readers interested in the Supreme Court in particular, or just U.S. history generally. I'd also recommend Jeff Shesol's Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt vs. the Supreme Court, which covers FDR's court-packing scheme and acts as a nice prequel to Scorpions.

IMOPORTANT SUPREME COURT HISTORY
Harvard Professor Noah Feldman's book SCORPIONS maybe one of the best books available on the history of the Supreme Court. This amazing book deals with the backgrounds and histories of and the terms of four FDR appointees, brilliant men, Felix Frankfurter, Hugo Black, Robert JaCkson, and William O. Douglas. Any reader of legal studies, histories, or educated read would easily recognize these gentlemen as giants of the Court. The book is rich with history and legal issues done in detail yet easy to read. HIGHLY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Excellent Legal and Political History
Noah Feldman's Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR's Great Supreme Court Justices is a superb piece of historical, political, and legal scholarship. I was made aware of the book by reviews in The Atlantic and The Economist, both of which praised the work. I concur wholeheartedly in their praise.

I've often wondered how human emotions and idiosyncrasies play into Supreme Court rulings. This book gives you examples from the mid twentieth century about how these impacted some of the most significant Supreme Court rulings in the history of the United States. That doesn't sound like a good thing on the surface, but the author explores how those emotions and idiosyncrasies opened the minds of these justices to create and compile some of the most significant theories of American constitutional law. These guys could be petty, vindictive, vengeful, rude, and maniacally egotistical, more often than not with each other, but they were also bright individuals who made positive contributions to American law and society. I don't always agree politically with all the contributions they made, but one cannot argue with the monumental impact of their decisions and opinions, even some of their dissents that did not ultimately become law.

If you have even a remote interest in America political history or American constitutional law, read this book. You will not be disappointed.

Keith ... Read more

Editorial Review

“Over the past four decades no reporter has critiqued the American South with such evocative sensitivity and bedrock honesty as Curtis Wilkie.”
—Douglas Brinkley
 
The Fall of the House of Zeus tells the story of Dickie Scruggs, arguably the most successful plaintiff's lawyer in America. A brother-in-law of Trent Lott, the former U.S. Senate Majority Leader, Scruggs made a fortune taking on mass tort lawsuits against “Big Tobacco” and the asbestos industries. He was hailed by Newsweek as a latter day Robin Hood, and portrayed in the movie, The Insider, as a dapper aviator-lawyer. Scruggs’ legal triumphs rewarded him lavishly, and his success emboldened both his career maneuvering and his influence in Southern politics--but at a terrible cost, culminating in his spectacular fall, when he was convicted for conspiring to bribe a Mississippi state judge. 
 
Here Mississippi is emblematic of the modern South, with its influx of new money and its rising professional class, including lawyers such as Scruggs, whose interests became inextricably entwined with state and national politics.
 
Based on extensive interviews, transcripts, and FBI recordings never made public, The Fall of the House of Zeus exposes the dark side of Southern and Washington legal games and power politics: the swirl of fixed cases, blocked investigations, judicial tampering, and a zealous prosecution that would eventually ensnare not only Scruggs but his own son, Zach, in the midst of their struggle with insurance companies over Hurricane Katrina damages. In gripping detail, Curtis Wilkie crafts an authentic legal thriller propelled by a “welter of betrayals and personal hatreds,” providing large supporting parts for Trent Lott and Jim Biden, brother of then-Senator Joe, and cameos by John McCain, Al Gore, and other DC insiders and influence peddlers.
 
Above all, we get to see how and why the mighty fail and fall, a story as gripping and timeless as a Greek tragedy. ... Read more

Reviews

The antithesis of Atticus Finch, October 25, 2010
Growing up in the 1960s, I remember my love of Harper Lee's TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. The novel that recently celebrated its 50th anniversary of publication portrayed Atticus Finch as an attorney fighting injustice and bigotry in America's south. Played by Gregory Peck, Finch became a shining example for many of my generation who chose the law as a noble and honorable profession. One-half century later, the legal profession is no longer viewed with the same sense of inspiration. Lawyers, especially trial lawyers, are now considered to be greedy, evil and dishonest practitioners who will take any client for a fee, and are frequent targets of political and media scorn.

THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF ZEUS by Curtis Wilkie tells the story of Dickie Scruggs, an attorney whose career represents the antithesis of the fictional Atticus Finch. Both were products of the Deep South, but Scruggs stood for everything that Finch abhorred. Wilkie, a reporter for more than 40 years and currently a professor at the University of Mississippi, was familiar with Scruggs and many of his contemporaries. After Scruggs was indicted by a federal grand jury, Wilkie began working on this book. He interviewed Scruggs, his son Zach, prosecutors, FBI agents and many attorneys. The result is a fast-paced drama that readers might well confuse with a John Grisham novel.

Wilkie's narrative is far more than the story of Dickie Scruggs, however. It is a tale of the modern South, its political past and present, new money, rising professional class and richly held traditions. All of these ingredients are vividly portrayed to weave a story that has substantial parts good and evil as well as success and failure.

Were it not for his eventual downfall, the life of Scruggs would be a modern-day Horatio Alger story. Scruggs, who grew up poor in Mississippi, once remarked, "We were so poor that if I hadn't been a boy, I wouldn't have had anything to play with." He served in the Navy and graduated from the University of Mississippi Law School. After a brief stint as an insurance defense lawyer, he opened his own office and won his first major case handling asbestos injury claims for workers in the Pascagoula, Mississippi shipyard. He also married the sister of powerful U.S. Senator Trent Lott. Although Scruggs was an active Democrat, the political connections of the Republican leader of the U.S. Senate were helpful.

Beyond asbestos, Scruggs represented Mississippi in its litigation against the tobacco industry. His legal fees were in the hundreds of millions. Suits against drug manufacturers and litigation surrounding Hurricane Katrina followed. Mississippi became a haven for plaintiff's lawyers who did their best to cultivate a plaintiff-friendly judiciary with enormous political contributions.

Like most successful trial lawyers, Scruggs was not shy about his success. He led a lavish life, built a multi-million-dollar home, and was a major contributor to his alma mater, Ole Miss. But his achievements brought him enemies. Ultimately he was indicted for attempting to bribe Mississippi state court judges. He eventually pled guilty and is presently incarcerated in federal prison, due to be released in 2015.

THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF ZEUS is an honest and thorough portrayal of a man who had great success as an attorney at a steep price. Anyone interested in the law and its interplay with industry and politics will find this to be an important and compelling book. America's national pastime is the law, and fans of that pastime will enjoy this noteworthy work.

--- Reviewed by Stuart Shiffman

Curtis Wilkie at his best, November 22, 2010
Curtis Wilkie has had a remarkable career as a journalist, from his days as a cub reporter at the Clarksdale Press Register to his work for the Boston Globe and now as a professor at Ole Miss. He is a born story teller and the Fall of the House of Zeus is a wonderful work of contemporary history. Unlike some of the other reviewers on Amazon, I would not compare him to Grisham -- Wilkie is a far better story teller. In addition, he tells a remarkable story about Dick Scruggs, making Scruggs into a human being, not quite Atticus Finch but a sympathetic human being, with real virtues. Congratulations to Wilkie for telling a remarkable story about corruption in politics, about Mississippi, about humanity.

If it were not true, it would be hard to believe, November 21, 2010
As a Mississippian who now lives in Georgia, I was mesmerized by a story that included so many people who were so familiar to me. As I read I continually wondered how the writer could know so many intimate details about the nefarious dealings in the shadows of the legal community. Although his research was impressive, the amount of detail could be intimidating; but he tells the story in true "thriller" fashion in spite of the outcome being obvious from the very beginning.

Having sat on one of Ed Peters' juries, I thought he was a prosecutor above reproach, only to learn that he was just as sleazy and underhanded as the other players in the complicated money-swap that resulted from the lucrative class action cases. And yet, Wilkie gave a sympathetic slant to the Scruggs family that had me feeling very sorry for Zach and Diane. By the end, I was very sad that the Mississippi I love has been besmirched by people who could have been great leaders.

for fans of legal thrillers, November 29, 2010
"The Fall of the House of Zeus" by Curtis Wilkie tells the story of Dick Scruggs, a lawyer from Mississippi who comes frfom humble beginnings, achieves his wildest dreams, and nearly loses everything in a legal scandal that ends in his imprisonment.

First off, I was not familiar with Scruggs when I picked up this book, but enjoyed legal thrillers enough to be interested in a real story. And this story pretty much lived up to my expectations.
Scruggs grows up in Mississippi, an only child who lives with his mother. Early on, Scruggs yearns to succeed and is lucky enough to get accepted into the "right" college, where his social circles are greatly enhanced and he is exposed to kids from wealthier families. Shortly afterwards he spends a couple years as a navy pilot, until he decides to go to law school. After graduating, Scruggs uses a connection--a senator friend of his mother's--to get his first two law firm jobs, but both end badly. Scruggs is fired from his first job, because he stands up to a partner who mistreated him. Then Scruggs quits his second law firm job after it's clear that he will never be fairly compensated for his efforts. And that's when Scruggs decides to start his own law firm.

His first success comes when he links up the individual asbestos lawsuits--coming from former employees of a local shipyard company--into a class action, which transforms him into a millionaire. Then Scruggs uses his winning strategy to successfully bring a class action law suit against the big tobacco companies, suing on behalf of states whose government healthcare programs financed the medical expenses of ex-smokers. And just when Scruggs seems untouchable and on the brink of a third class action suit, this time against the insurance companies who denied coverage post Hurricane Katrina, disaster strikes.

If you're a fan of legal thrillers like I am, then you will probably enjoy this book, two thirds of which focuses on behind-the-scenes actions that ultimately lead to Scruggs' indictment. This is not the fairy tale story of Robin Hood, but rather a cautionary tale of too much greed, power, and betrayal.

Stranger than fiction, December 11, 2010
If this were a novel, the byzantine plot line would be hard to believe. Wilkie starts slowly, building a solid foundation for the quickening pace which by the end has the reader unable to put the book down. Other reviewers have compared the plot line to Grisham. I say, Grisham should eat his heart out and so should Scott Turow. Zeus is far more exciting than anything either has written. This former Mississippian thought New York politics was complicated and sharp-edged but not compared to the world so ably depicted by Wilkie. Anyone interested in politics, law, the South, and/or a good read should not miss this book.

Interesting Read For Those Interested, December 3, 2010
Fun read about the rise and, more so (obviously) the fall of incredibly successful class action lawyer Dickie Scruggs. The author writes impartially about the subject, which is actually not as clear cut as I had previously thought. It was fairly fast paced, especially when the book turns from his background to the crime, investigation, and ultimate outcome. A great book for lawyers interested in some light reading.

Better than Grisham!, December 23, 2010
Although this is nonfiction, it reads just like a Grisham novel ... indeed if you like legal nonfiction such as a Civil Action, or Erin Brockovich, you will enjoy this book!

Well written, November 29, 2010
Excellent capture of excess gone wrong. While some might simply attribute this novel to "just Mississippi" the real story is that scenarios like this serve as a remainder these stories are playing out throughout our country. Money does corrupt.

My thoughts on this book, November 12, 2010
I am from a small Mississippi town that is 30 minutes from Oxford. My daughter and son both graduated from Ole Miss. My son and his wife live there now. Many names and places I am very familiar with. As a matter of fact, I know some of the people mentioned in this book. Dickie Scruggs law firm should be renamed--"Dewey, Cheatem, and How!!! ... Read more

Editorial Review

Reviews

A well-written and insighful account of Brenann's life and career, September 5, 2010

Fascinating "Inside" Look at Warren/Burger Courts, October 4, 2010
This excellent biography provides fascinating detail of the formulation of some of the most significant cases of the 20th century. I've never read a judicial biography that has so much "inside baseball" - and it will be loved by Court junkies. But it's also a crisply written and compelling story of 20th century US politics, intellectual history, religion, and gender relations -- told through the life of a towering figure of American history. Anyone interested in 20th century US history will really enjoy this fine book.

Great book about the Supreme Court, September 23, 2010

AN EXEMPLARY BIOGRAPHY OF AN EXCEPTIONALLY INFLUENTIAL JURIST, October 8, 2010

important contribution to history of law, October 17, 2010

An outstanding critical biography . . ., November 8, 2010

Our Most Complete Study of Justice Brennan, November 2, 2010
A superior Supreme Court biography manifests a number of key features: discussion of family and educational background; analysis of pre-Court positions, especially judgeships; careful attention to how the subject was selected and confirmed for the appointment; some discussion of how the Justice interacted with colleagues, including the dynamics of decision-making; analysis of the subject's judicial philosophy; and reasonably detailed discussion of some of the Justice's key decisions. By these measures, this the most recent of many biographies of Justice Brennan (1906-1997) is an important addition to the Supreme Court literature.

One of the most interesting aspects of the book is how it came about. Apparently after the appearance of "The Brethren" (1979). Brennan became concerned about his public image. In 1986, he met with Stephen Wermiel, then covering the Court for the "Wall Street Journal," and agreed to cooperate in developing a biography. On top of 60 recorded interviews, Wermiel was given access to Brennan's papers, including "term histories" compiled by his clerks recounting important cases with which the Justice had been involved. Co-author Seth Stern took over lead writing responsibilities after Wermiel became an American University law professor, and he conducted further interviews and reviewed additional written sources such as conference notes and other material. In my experience, it is very unusual for such cooperation to be forthcoming from a Justice; the downside is that what we get primarily is Brennan's take on things, although the authors are fairly even-handed in their assessments. In any regard, what we are interested in are Brennan's views of the Court during his service, and they certainly come through loud and clear here.

The book is divided into Parts I-V, which are presented in chronological order. So, in Part I (1906-1956), are chapters on family background, legal education, initial lawyer experience, military service, ascending the New Jersey state court bench, and Brennan's involvement in state court reform activities. Part II (1956-62) contains some of the most important chapters in the book. An excellent chapter recounts how Brennan, a Democrat, was selected by Ike for the Court appointment. A succeeding chapter focuses on how Brennan adjusted to joining the Court, especially his relationship with Chief Justice Warren, Justice Frankfurter's courtship and eventual disappointment in Brennan, how Brennan used his clerks and developed his famous persuasive techniques, and some of the difficult areas he encountered early during his tenure, including obscenity, church-state separation, and national security issues.

Part III (1962-1969) shows Brennan at the pinnacle of his influence during the most critical (and controversial) period of the Warren Court. While important decisions in areas like obscenity, criminal justice, and civil rights are discussed, the book scores high points for not becoming too technical or detailed, and always keeping the focus on larger Court developments, such as how the loss of Justice Black, the resignation of Justice Fortas, and the death of Warren impacted on Brennan's ability to build coalitions. Another bonus is the authors focus on Brennan the person, for example in his decision to withdraw the offer of a clerkship to Michael Tigar. So the reader benefits from a triple focus: key Court decisions; how Brennan interacts with his colleagues; and Brennan the person.

Part IV (1969-82) shows Brennan in retreat, as Burger becomes Chief and Rehnquist joins the Court. Brennan turns Blackmun into an ally and plays a major, but behind-the-scenes, role in drafting the abortion decision. Marshall joins the Court as well, and Brennan is able to exert persuasive influence over Blackmun and Powell. But he fails to charm O'Connor, and as more conservative Justices join the Court, his influence falls to a low level. This trend continues in Part V (1983-1997), although Brennan can still work his persusaive magic on occasion. However, Justices Scalia and Kennedy exert more dynamic influence than Brennan. Brennan urges state supreme courts to take up the slack in protecting civil rights and liberties. On a personal basis, Brennan is reluctant about hiring his few women clerks. Bad health leads to his retirement in 1990.

This hefty volume runs some 650 pages, including notes. The 90 pages of endnotes and the discussion of "Sources" attest to the extensive research conducted by the authors. A number of helpful photographs are included. The authors are careful and thoughtful in rendering judgments; sensitive to views opposing those of Brennan; and critical of their subject at points. All and all, this is a very fine effort and well worth the attention of anyone interested in the Court and its dynamics.

great judicial biography, December 12, 2010

The most important politician you've never heard of, December 11, 2010

Wermiel Captures the Brennan Era, December 7, 2010
I enjoyed reading the story of Justice Brennan: Liberal Champion by Stephen Wermiel and Seth Stern. I had the privilege of working with my friend and former neighbor Steve as he recorded two chapters of his book for RFB&D. In a few weeks the book will be ready for the blind or dyslexic members of RFB&D to hear at no cost.
Wermiel researched and conducted interviews for 21 years. He then asked for Stern's help in drafting his enormous accumulation of source material and in interviewing Brennan's clerks and fellow justices again.
The early chapters about Brennan's family make it clear that having a politician father taught the young man the skills he later employed as a justice of the Supreme Court; ie. the art of compromise and persuasion. As for the conversion of a conservative young man into the champion for liberal thought Brennan became, Wermiel refers to Justice Brennan's opinions as "evolving". That single word tells a great deal about the dynamic of the Supreme Court. Nine brilliant people of differing backgrounds and perceptions must somehow compromise to produce an opinion.
The book is written with such clarity I was able to follow the cases the justices weighed and understand how they arrived at consensus or dissent. The biography of Brennan would be a good choice for study in High School Civics classes. It's especially useful because the Brennan biography was written to be widely accessible. Justice Brennan requested that his biography not be released until after his death, so Wermiel needed comsiderable stamina and courage to undertake such an important and long term project despite pressure on him to rush to print. Brennan clearly had his sights on the future of the USA. His opinion's effectiveness even after he retired is an indication of his progressive thinking. In addition, members of the family were reticent to speak candidly about Justice Brennan's family life until a few years after his death. His biography outlines the considerable stress Brennan dealt with day to day outside court including caring for his first wife and his own cancer.
When I asked Wermiel if the landmark opinions brokered by Justice Brennan had an effect internationally his response was yes. Several other countries have adopted Brennan era decisions as a blueprint to make changes to their constitutions.
A first rate book, one of the most interesting and scrupulous biographies I've ever read and . I feel it is worthy to be a candidate for a Pulitzer prize. ... Read more

Editorial Review

There are shelves of memoirs about overcoming the death of a parent, childhood abuse, rape, drug addiction, miscarriage, alcoholism, hustling, gangbanging, near-death injuries, drug dealing, prostitution, or homelessness.

Cupcake Brown survived all these things before she’d even turned twenty.

And that’s when things got interesting….


You have in your hands the strange, heart-wrenching, and exhilarating tale of a woman named Cupcake. It begins as the story of a girl orphaned twice over, once by the death of her mother and then again by a child welfare system that separated her from her stepfather and put her into the hands of an epically sadistic foster parent. But there comes a point in her preteen years—maybe it’s the night she first tries to run away and is exposed to drugs, alcohol, and sex all at once—when Cupcake’s story shifts from a tear-jerking tragedy to a dark comic blues opera. As Cupcake’s troubles grow, so do her voice and spirit. Her gut-punch sense of humor and eye for the absurd, along with her outsized will, carry her through a fateful series of events that could easily have left her dead.

Young Cupcake learned to survive by turning tricks, downing hard liquor, partying like a rock star, and ingesting every drug she could find while hitchhiking up and down the California coast. She stumbled into gangbanging, drug dealing, hustling, prostitution, theft, and, eventually, the best scam of all: a series of 9-to-5 jobs. But Cupcake’s unlikely tour through the cubicle world was paralleled by a quickening descent into the nightmare of crack cocaine use, till she eventually found herself living behind a Dumpster.

Astonishingly, she turned it around. With the help of a cobbled together family of eccentric fellow addicts and “angels”—a series of friends and strangers who came to her aid at pivotalmoments—she slowly transformed her life from the inside out.

A Piece of Cake is unlike any memoir you’ll ever read. Moving and almost transgressive in its frankness, it is a relentlessly gripping tale of a resilient spirit who took on the worst of contem-porary urban life and survived it with a furious wit and unyielding determination. Cupcake Brown is a dynamic and utterly original storyteller who will guide you on the most satisfying, startlingly funny, and genuinely affecting tour through hell you’ll ever take.



When it came time for me to talk, I wasn’t sure which parts of my past to tell, which to keep secret, and which to pretend never happened. Uncle Jr. had already seen the welts on my back, so he wasn’t too surprised when I told them about some of the physical abuse I endured at Diane’s. Everyone else hit the roof, except Daddy. He got really quiet and started balling and unballing his fists.

I continued my update. Experience had taught me that adults have trouble accepting the idea of children having sex. I decided that from then on, that part of my life never happened. I picked up the story by telling them about Fly, the Gangstas, and getting shot.

I was dying for a cigarette. So it seemed a good time to announce that I smoked cigarettes—and weed.

After a moment Sam looked at me, smiled, and handed me one of her Marlboros. I preferred menthols, but beggars can’t be choosers. I kicked back, took a long drag, and closed my eyes.

Daddy and Jr. were silent. They seemed a bit shocked and unsure about how to respond.

“Well, Cup,” Jr. said, “it’s a little too late to be trying to raise you now. But those cigarettes will kill you. And weed will only lead you to stronger drugs.”

He didn’t know how right he was. But for me, it was too late to be worrying about stronger drugs—the only worrying I did was whether I could find a connection to get some. So I just smiled, nodded, and took another hit off my cigarette.

The eerie quiet returned.

—from A Piece of Cake


Also available as a Random House AudioBook and eBook.


From the Hardcover edition. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Memoirs adapted from the author's diary chronicle his emotionally and intellectually challenging first year in law school and records the fierce and sometimes hysterical competition that is faced by Harvard Law School students. Reprint. Tour. NYT. " ... Read more

Editorial Review

"Can we get some reality in here?" asks Judy Sheindlin, former supervising judge for Manhattan Family Court. For twenty-four years she has laid down the law as she understands it:

• If you want to eat, you have to work.

• If you have children, you'd better support them.

• If you break the law, you have to pay.

• If you tap the public purse, you'd better be accountable.

Now she abandons all judicial restraint in a scathing critique of the system--filled with realistic hard-nosed alternatives to our bloated welfare bureaucracy and our soft-on-crime laws. ... Read more

Reviews

Common sense served on a platter, December 15, 2004
People don't like Judge Judy because she's a "b" or a tyrant. As an ER doctor, I can tell you that what she really is: fed up. Both of us are tired of the vast amount of human garbage we deal with on a daily basis. What is the common factor amongst all these people?

The unwillingness to take *personal responsibility* for your own life.

Simple.

This book is a great collection of situations and solutions for those who cannot manage to wade through the mire of moral choices they are faced with. It's also immensely amusing and right on target.

You will find yourself nodding and laughing. Perhaps you will even wonder why this has to be written down in a book...when it's all just common sense. This is a great present and a quick read. Read her other books as well.

Tough reality from a tough lady!, August 20, 2000
To sum this book up in one sentence is reality with no excuses allowed. This book chronicles Sheindlin's experiences as one of NYC's top family court judges. Sheindlin gives the lowdown on how those who have appeared before her always try to find a scapegoat for their misfortunes and shortcomings. However, Sheindlin is no fool because she can see these people for what they are. Most of them are just ordinary people who fail to take responsibility for their mistakes. People who constantly blame society for their own problems. People who run the gamut with excuses for everything that has gone wrong in their lives without once looking at themselves. From deadbeat dads to irresponsible moms and everything in between, Sheindlin can tell the truly misfortunate from the con artists. I couldn't put this book down. It was such an awesome piece of work. I totally recommend this book to anyone. After reading about Judge Sheindlin's 20+ years as a lawyer and judge, you'll see why it's titled "Don't Pee On My Leg and Tell Me It's Raining."

WHAT YOU SEE...IS WHAT YOU GET, June 24, 2001
I have to admit that I am in complete agreement with Judge Judy. She is a tough talking, no nonsense, commom sense oriented individual, who believes in personal responsibility and acountability. What you see on the television screen, if you watch her show "Judge Judy", is what you find between the cover of this book.

The book covers a variety of social issues in the context of her legal and judicial experience, and she does a full court press in giving her opinions. Not given to judicial restraint, she speaks out on those issues to which her nearly quarter of a century experience as a judge has entitled her. I only wish that she were running for public office. She would certainly have my vote.

The only issue that I take with the book is that it is really not a cohesive entity. It is a somewhat disjointed collection of essays or opinions on various social issues that repeatedly came up during her years on the bench. There is no attempt to put them together into a broader context, so that one segues into the next. This is the one shortcoming of the book. Nonetheless, it is still an interesting read.

Judge Judy for President!, July 7, 2003
Judge Judy, once again, tells it like it is. If you've seen her on TV then you know exactly that she's no pushover. A lot of "bleeding hearts" would never agree with her statements, but I was pleased to read that someone has the courage to stand up and say that things need to change. Being a family court judge, she's seen it all. Women abusing the welfare system by having numerous kids, men hiding from paying child support, people on welfare refusing to work on the basis that it is "below them" and so many other mini case studies fill this book.
I say "Judge Judy for President!!"

Oh this book will fire up your blood for sure, August 12, 2004
OK, for anyone out there who is tired of people who make excuses, people who can not take responsibility for their own actions, and people who use and abuse the system, THIS BOOK IS FOR YOU!

Judy Sheindlin takes the same approach in this book as she does on her TV show. No punches are pulled and no one is spared as Judge Judy lashes out in a strong argument against the types of people mentioned in the above paragraph.

For instance, Judy insists that America's legal system must crack down on juvenile offenders, especially the repeat ones. Many Americans, myself included, are fed up with the way criminals have life easy, and people that make their living as parasites off of a welfare system that taxpayers fund.

This book may cause some readers to write to their Congressman and demand that as an American citizen, and honest, hard-working taxpayer, these criminals (I'm encompassing all the people in Judy's book) must be stopped and common sense must have a place in the life of government and society.

Whatever You Do, Don't Mess With This Lady!, March 25, 2003
I don't normally read books that are ghostwritten. This one, however, was not only informative but wildly entertaining. See Judge Judy skewer self-proclaimed victims, lazy attorneys, callous bureaucrats, unwed teen mothers, craven foster parents, and in general anyone who while serving themselves degrades the lives we all lead in this land of ours.

The only negative I can think of is that, too often, points that need more detail end up as truncated sound bites. By making her points as succinctly as possible, Judge Judy has justifiably won for herself quite a following -- although the book's trenchant style is not dissimilar to her TV appearances, so I can't blame the ghost writer. I guess I'm just too much of a detail wonk to feel comfortable with short shrift on major subjects. Give me facts, footnotes, and all those other scholarly trappings that take me beyond the level of the merely anecdotal.

But this book is not meant for people like me, though I can enjoy it as much as anyone. Judge Judy's elevation of COMMON SENSE to a principle of jurisprudence is guaranteed to make you think, even if it doesn't satisfy all bases.

The book was "BAD! " (meaning great!), November 18, 1999
This book should be on EVERY book shelf in America! I've read it twice. matter of fact, I purchased both books that were written by Judge Judy. I have so much respect for her because she tells it just like it SHOULD be told. As I watch her t.v. program, it amazes me to see how families could sue one another! I would NEVER sue any members of my family. I've learned many things from watching her program. Among many, these are at the top of the line: NEVER, EVER loan family members money and NEVER, EVER co-sign for ANYBODY to buy anything! I strongly practice these two important lessons. If I choose to help a family member, you can bet your last dollar, it will be a gift! This way, I'll never expect repayment, and our friendship will remain in tact!

CHEERING FOR JUDGE JUDY!!, October 25, 2006
This book made me want to cheer out loud!! Judge Judy points out, as so many in society do, that there is a lack of responisbility out there. So many people in our county refuse to take responsibility for their own stupid mistakes and the rest of us pay for it. There is too much reliance on people who live by the law and live their lives responsibly.
I did feel rather sad to realize though, that she is just ONE judge who takes action in her own little corner of America. If more people thought like her, and followed her actions on getting tough with the deadbeats of the nation, this country would not have the severe problems it has. I wish more people in a position of power could see things how she sees it.

Common sense at last!, September 18, 1999
Judge Judy offers some real solutions to real problems in this book. It is about time someone took task with the inadequacies of our legal system and social system. While not a comfortable read at times, it was well worth hearing her views and solutions and I would reccomend this book to anyone. The world needs more people like Judge Judy.

Judge Judy for president, July 29, 1999
What a brilliant woman! At the end of each page...I found my self saying...YEAH!! IT'S ABOUT FREAKIN' TIME!! There are great no-nonsense solutions in this book to very real problems. Not to mention some scary stories of mainstream America. The amazing thing about this book is that the stories are true! Nobody could make this stuff up. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Provocative, inspiring, and unflinchingly honest, My Grandfather's Son is the story of one of America's most remarkable and controversial leaders, Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, told in his own words.

Thomas was born in rural Georgia on June 23, 1948, into a life marked by poverty and hunger. His parents divorced when Thomas was still a baby, and his father moved north to Philadelphia, leaving his young mother to raise him and his brother and sister on the ten dollars a week she earned as a maid. At age seven, Thomas and his six-year-old brother were sent to live with his mother's father, Myers Anderson, and her stepmother in their Savannah home. It was a move that would forever change Thomas's life.

His grandfather, whom he called "Daddy," was a black man with a strict work ethic, trying to raise a family in the years of Jim Crow. Thomas witnessed his grandparents' steadfastness despite injustices, their hopefulness despite bigotry, and their deep love for their country. His own quiet ambition would propel him to Holy Cross and Yale Law School, and eventually—despite a bitter, highly contested public confirmation—to the highest court in the land. In this candid and deeply moving memoir, a quintessential American tale of hardship and grit, Clarence Thomas recounts his astonishing journey for the first time, and pays homage to the man who made it possible.

Intimately and eloquently, Thomas speaks out, revealing the pieces of his life he holds dear, detailing the suffering and injustices he has overcome, including the acrimonious and polarizing Senate hearing involving a former aide, Anita Hill, and the depression and despair it created in his own life and the lives of those closest to him. My Grandfather's Son is the story of a determined man whose faith, courage, and perseverance inspired him to rise up against all odds and achieve his dreams.

Editorial Review

In this extraordinary memoir, John F. Kennedy's closest advisor recounts in full for the first time his experience counseling Kennedy through the most dramatic moments in American history. Illuminating, revelatory, and gripping, Counselor is the brilliant, long-awaited memoir from the remarkable man who shaped the presidency and the legacy of one of the greatest leaders America has ever known.

Editorial Review

All Rise is the authorized biography of this remarkable man, a man who became a pioneer for his race without setting out to be one. He grew up in Canton, Ohio, in the shadow of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, into which he would later be inducted after his stellar NFL career. After leading Notre Dame to a national championship in 1966 and earning All-America honors, he became a first-round draft choice of the Minnesota Vikings in 1967. A six-time All-Pro for the Vikes, where he led the team to four conference titles, he was named the NFL's MVP in 1971, the first defensive player (and one of only two in the 54 year history of the award) to be so honored. With Carl Eller, Jim Marshall, and Gary Larson, the famed "Purple People Eaters" gained immortality as they set the gold standard for defensive linemen. During his fifteen year NFL career, Page played in 218 consecutive games, and recorded 178 sacks. ... Read more

Editorial Review

To escape from a Texas jail or prison once is unusual. To do it four times is incredible. To do it four times in five years and always on a Friday the 13th is the stuff of legend. Welcome to the world of Steven Russell. Con artist. Thief. Swindler. Embezzler. Hopeless romantic.

A husband and father, Russell was a church organist, prosperous businessman, and onetime Boca Raton cop before turning to his life of crime. Arrested for a string of felonies, with a specialty in fraud, his real expertise turned out to be his uncanny ability to escape from jail. Between 1993 and 1998, he orchestrated a string of prison breaks that were as audacious as they were ingenious. Using whatever unlikely materials were at hand—a Magic Marker, a pay phone, a walkie-talkie, a pair of stolen bright red women's stretch pants—along with an innate talent for analytical thinking and boundless quantities of sheer nerve, Russell again and again arranged his own "early releases" from jail. Unfortunately, for Russell, staying out of jail is another matter entirely.

Over the years, it became increasingly clear that Russell's talent for escape is matched only by his knack for getting arrested. One thing always seems to trump Steven Russell's careful planning, cool head, and instinct for self-preservation—love. Russell cannot resist the urge to try and spring the great love of his life—a fellow inmate named Phillip Morris.

In I Love You Phillip Morris, journalist Steve McVicker goes right to the heart of this improbable-but-true story of crime, punishment, and passion. Thanks to unprecedented and exclusive access to Russell, his family, and his friends, he retraces Russell's journey from small-town businessman to flamboyant white-collar criminal and jailhouse Houdini. It's the darkly comic tale of a man with a spectacular ability to manipulate almost everyone he meets, yet who is himself helpless in the face of love. ... Read more

Editorial Review

In 1974 Charles W. Colson pleaded guilty to Watergate-related offenses and, after a tumultuous investigation, served seven months in prison. In his search for meaning and purpose in the face of the Watergate scandal, Colson penned Born Again. This unforgettable memoir shows a man who, seeking fulfillment in success and power, found it, paradoxically, in national disgrace and prison.In more than three decades since its initial publication, Born Again has brought hope and encouragement to millions. This remarkable story of new life continues to influence lives around the world. This expanded edition includes a brand-new introduction and a new epilogue by Colson, recounting the writing of his bestselling book and detailing some of the ways his background and ministry have brought hope and encouragement to so many. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Editorial Review

During his twenty-five year career with the Investigative Support Unit, Special Agent John Douglas became a legendary figure in law enforcement, pursuing some of the most notorious and sadistic serial killers of our time: the man who hunted prostitutes for sport in the woods of Alaska, the Atlanta child murderer, and Seattle's Green River killer, the case that nearly cost Douglas his life.

As the model for Jack Crawford in The Silence of the Lambs, Douglas has confronted, interviewed, and studied scores of serial killers and assassins, including Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, and Ed Gein, who dressed himself in his victims' peeled skin. Using his uncanny ability to become both predator and prey, Douglas examines each crime scene, reliving both the killer's and the victim's actions in his mind, creating their profiles, describing their habits, and predicting their next moves.

Now, in chilling detail, the legendary Mindhunter takes us behind the scenes of some of his most gruesome, fascinating, and challenging cases -- and into the darkest recesses of our worst nightmares. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Reviews

Surviving., October 4, 2009
What makes this book important are its clear similarities to the events of today. In fact, it's hard to read the book and not get the two eras a little confused. Bank closings? Check. Recovery Act bills and government spending? Check. Bankruptcy? Check. Foreclosures and federal foreclosure prevention programs? Check. Partial and full takeovers of industry? Check. Smaller paychecks every year? Yep. (While the editors admit to the release of the book being spurred by the current economic crisis, the cyclical nature of this type of event means the book would actually have been just as important in 1999 or 2006 as it is today.)

Beginning in June 1931, Benjamin Roth recorded in a series of notebooks his observations on the events in Youngstown, Ohio. Highlighted are the sad state of his legal practice throughout the depression years, bank closings and reopenings, steel production levels, growth in the ranks of the unemployed, and extreme deflation in the early years of the depression. Though having no investments of his own, Roth recorded stock prices and dividend payments, and much of the discussion surrounds the best way to have invested if he had been able. Roth worries most about a period of strong inflation spurred by the policies of the Roosevelt administration and about middle-class professionals such as him being bypassed by the growing recovery, but also about the anti-Semitism of the campaign by Republican Alfred M. Landon in the 1936 presidential election, Hitler's takeover of Europe, government control, socialism, losing the gold standard and the rise of organized labor, especially when it led to strikes and violent confrontation in Youngstown. He worries, too, about collecting what is due his practice without causing hardship.

I know little about investing, but Roth's progression through the years of the depression is evident. At first, he believes that government bonds would have been the only safe strategy; later fears of inflation push him toward stocks, preferred and common. When the recovery stumbled greatly in mid 1937, he comes to believe that only having a pot of cash available and shifting among different strategies the follow the curve of boom and bust is prudent. In the end, he aligns himself somewhere between the speculators who he blames for the crash and the long-term, bonds-only investor he would have been earlier in the crisis.

Roth's theorizing about investment strategy is nothing more, because he is too short on cash to do anything with his ideas. (While the book offers few details, the late 1940s and following decades were more profitable for Roth and his law office, which is still in operation with his son and editor at the helm. Roth and his wife also left behind the Benjamin W. and Marion B. Roth Foundation, a charitable organization.) What he offers in addition to his hypothetical musings on where to allocate non-existent savings is a picture of depression-era concern and struggle among the middle, professional class -- not the union workers, not the migrant fruit pickers and not the stockbrokers driven to despair by losing everything. It is an important perspective.

The parallels to today are rampant, despite the obvious changes over the years. I find it hard to sympathize when Roth complains that only the working class is getting the benefits of the recovery, this due to federal requirements for shorter work days, increased pay and recognition of unions. The fear of socialism because of government spending I do not share, but many do today; bold government spending is what ended the Great Depression, though only when war gave the administration full license to do so. What I do share with Roth is resentment of those who play with the market as speculators, not as investors. He makes that distinction clear, and the blame is just as evident. Along with deregulation, those speculating in real estate, bad real estate loans and petroleum futures share a great deal of the responsibility for the fact that millions of us now make less money than we did two years ago, and that college graduates cannot find jobs, and that many formerly employed no longer have any job or are working well beneath their abilities. Yet he leaves room in his view of the market for a person not to hide his savings away but to invest it in growing business and government bonds, putting it to work while reaping the benefits -- but in a way that is both responsible and prudent.

I read this book in 24 hours. The format of short diary entries combined with the thrill of following the ups and downs of Roth's community and the country in light of today's situation made it easy. I'd recommend you pick it up and do the same.

Comparative reading, November 9, 2009
As a child of the Depression I found The Great Depression: a Diary very interesting and informative. My father was not a professional person and I am sure he did not have any stocks, but the traumatic events that occurred happened to everyone. There are so many similarities to todays events: bank closings, credit problems, the closing of so very many businesses and the institution of so many programs to save jobs and the economy and very few of them having the stimulus needed. I also found it interesting to track the professional person as I have worked for lawyers and they seem to suffer immediately from a downturn in the economy. Apparently it was the same many years ago. A very good read and I would recommend it to anyone who lived through the great depression or would like a comparison of the present situation and the dark days long ago.

Excellent first-person historical account of the Great Depression, November 4, 2009
I purchased The Great Depression: A Diary after reading Joe Nocera's excellent column about the book which appeared in the New York Times on October 17th. I was most impressed by the book and recommend that it be placed on everybody's list. It would be a great Christmas present for anyone old enough to have lived during the Great Depression, and an eye-opener for those who are struggling to make sense of our current economic situation. As it has been said, "Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it."

I found the book hard to put down and believe that it has great historical value. We have all read histories of the Depression, but to read the day-to-day account of a young lawyer who was living it in real time is unique. It was amazing to me to be able to follow the history as it was being made, and it gave me much greater insight into how the so-called middle class suffered. I give it my 5 star approval.

Visceral, March 5, 2010
I've always wondered why people who emerged from the Great Depression are so different than my generation (boomer). They are more nervous, cautious, a bit fearful, but way more sensible than the carefree, debt-ridden generations that were born after the depression ended. When someone says, "my folks lived through the depression" you know what they're like. Forever changed, savers, and never crazy with investments.
So the chance to read a nunc-pro-tunc account of what daily life was like to a person living in the Great Depression, it's a fantastic historical opportunity to enter a time capsule with such granularity and texture that you feel like you are there.
But what's haunting is the similarities of life then to life today. Phantom ups and downs so the unaware public is being convinced that the worst is over, when in fact, history showed that it was only going to get worse. The government bailouts, and the fear of inflation. In many ways reading this book is like reading today's papers.
Scary and enlightening - it's a great piece of american history.

It sounds like a great idea, but. . ., October 29, 2009
. . .in the end it doesn't deliver.

I was excited about this book as it a new primary source about a pivotal period in economics that remains controversial. While we have many accounts of the Depression, they were written after the events they describe and generally with strong points of view. This is a diary written contemporaneously by a man who didn't know how things would turn out, and wrote to help himself make sense of events rather than to convince others of a preconceived opinions.

The first disappointment is the book contains virtually nothing about life. Only a few period details slip in; learning about the major local banks closing through newsboys shouting "Extra" at four o'clock in the morning; movie theaters cutting costs by eliminating vaudeville acts between features. There is nothing personal, not even personal economics: did he have accounts frozen at banks, did he hoard cash, what cutbacks did he make when times got bad, did he use script or barter when banks were closed? As a result, non-financial history buffs will find nothing of interest, and the book is very dull.

I think this led the published reviewers and also M. Stewart to exaggerate the similarities with today's events. The author records only a few bits of economic data: downtown real estate vacancies, prices of half a dozen stocks and capacity utilization at local steel mills. At that superficial level, all business cycles seem the same. Once again, there are a few interesting bits. The double liability of bank shareholders seemed to be a major impediment to equilibrium and local property taxes based on pre-Depression appraisals forced the demolition of useful buildings. Depending on your politics, you can read this as evidence that government economic interference exacerbated the Depression, or that the government should bail bankers out and accept deficits as the price of restoring economic health. Another difference that gets noted in passing is holdover personal debts from the 1920s and early 30s meant many of the middle class people the author describes had negative net worth as late as the end of the decade, something today they would either discharge through personal bankruptcy or settle earlier in one way or another.

The book provides a test of Nassim Taleb's narrative fallacy. He argues that people define eras after-the-fact, then write histories which ignore everything unrelated to that definition as irrelevant, and thereby present neat cause-and-effect stories of reality that is far more chaotic. This diary has to be considered contrary evidence. The author knows from the beginning that he's living through the Depression, and records the same type of economic information and events that figure in the histories. "The depression" is all he ever calls it, although it had many different contemporary designations, and he always dates it from the 1929 stock market crash. He mentions the major national and world events remembered today, and no others. When Germany invades Poland in September 1939 he calls it the "second world war," an inaccurate description at that date and a term that had not previously been recorded before 1942. In August 1940 he refers to Germany's "blitzkrieg" against England, although what was later named the "London Blitz" did not begin until the next month. Taleb might argue that is why this diary was published and millions of others ignored, or perhaps that the coherence was introduced in the editing process. But taken at face value, this book says the Depression was a lot like what history books describe.

However, little of the book is concerned with large events. The constants are complaints about how little money he was making practicing law, calculations of how rich you could get if you bought at low prices and sold at high ones, and stories of people who went broke buying at high prices and selling at low ones. The reasoning is shockingly superficial for an intelligent man who spent a decade thinking about things, he drifts from one pompous non-actionable theory to another, without acknowledging the shifts.

He relies on undefined moral terms, you are supposed to make "prudent" investments in "first class" securities selling below "intrinsic value" and sell when speculative fever heats up. Of course, if you lose money you bought imprudent second-class securities above intrinsic value during rampant speculation. There is no concept of statistical risk, no theory of value or equilibrium, no economic reasoning; just childish regret that it is impossible to transact at historical prices. Of course, he is not the first person to be tantalized by stock prices going up and down, and how easy it seems to be to make or lose money, but he may be the smartest person to spend ten years thinking and writing about it without digging deeper. He is a perfect illustration for the definition of the stock market addict William Worthington Fowler penned sixty years earlier: "'If' and 'but' are the most frequent conjunctions in his vocabulary. His whole life is a series of regrets, and strange to say, these regrets are more often for what he might have made, but did not, than for what he has actually lost."

Great Book, August 29, 2010
I read the book in two days. It clearly shows (if one is willing open their mind) that government intervention creates more problems than it solves. Another look at how FDR really governed without a PC re-write of history. Very helpful information for those looking to invest in today's economy.

An interesting first hand account!, June 12, 2010
Benjamin Roth's first hand account of The Great Depression from 1931 to 1941 was a very fascinating and personal read that provided not only historical perspective on the events of the time, but also a friendly voice and opinion of the days events.

What really set this book apart for me was the authors first hand account of events as they unfolded, versus most historical accounting of the period which are mostly a retrospects. Mr. Roth fills us in on current events as they unfolded in America during the time, his opinion on the situations (which leaned conservative) and his predictions. A fun bit of the book is that Mr. Roth would actually go back and review entries and add updates such as "These predictions turned out to be completely wrong.".

I think this book also hit home for me due to the financial situation we're currently going through these days in America. You read about Mr. Roth's trepidations towards FDR and his "New Deal", constantly warning of out of control government spending and the impending inflation boom (which never came).

My wife and I were talking and this book seems to beg the question of what would have come of the American economy if World War 2 hadn't started. Would we have continued on a downward spiral of inflation? It's not fun think about but I really feel that this book paints an accurate (if not a bit biased, but as to be expected with the nature of the account) of The Great Depression and how it impacted Main Street America. (show less)

i re-read this book practically every day, January 22, 2010
read this book if you want to fathom what is going on today - it gives a extremely useful perspective on today

The Great Depression: A Diary (paperback edition), August 31, 2010
BOOK REVIEW: Benjamin Roth's 'The Great Depression: A Diary' Brings Nation's Greatest Financial Meltdown to Life

Reviewed By David M. Kinchen

The 'forgotten men' of today are the doctors, lawyers, insurance men, etc. They are down and out and can do very little about it. -- Benjamin Roth, diary entry Nov. 10, 1933

Image removed by sender.That refrain -- echoing Franklin D. Roosevelt's "Forgotten Man" radio speech of April 7, 1932, when he was still governor of New York -- runs through Benjamin Roth's "The Great Depression: A Diary" (PublicAffairs, $15.95 quality paperback, 288 pages, edited by James Ledbetter and Daniel B. Roth, with an introduction by Ledbetter) much as the Mahoning River runs through Roth's hometown of Youngstown, Ohio.

Benjamin Roth was born in New York City in 1894 but he moved with his family while still very young to Youngstown. He received a law degree and moved back to Youngstown after serving as an army officer during World War I. When the stock market crashed in 1929, he had been practicing law for about ten years, representing local businesses for the most part. After nearly two years, he began to grasp the magnitude of what had happened to American economic life, and he began writing down his impressions in a diary that he maintained intermittently until he died in 1978.

Youngstown, midway between New York City and Chicago and about halfway between Cleveland and Pittsburgh, was a thriving industrial city of about 170,000 people at the time of the October 1929 stock market crash. Today it has about 78,000 residents, with legendary employers like Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. long gone. (A personal note: I worked in the quality control department of YS&T's mill in Lake County, Indiana for about a year in the mid-1960s, before I joined the reportorial staff of the Hammond (IN) Times in January 1966). If Pittsburgh and Chicago were the centers of Big Steel, Youngstown was home to "Little Steel" companies like Youngstown Sheet and Tube and Republic Steel.

Most of the entries cover the period from 1931 to the end of 1941, after the Pearl Harbor attack and the declaration of war against the U.S. by Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy on Dec. 11, 1941. Roth interjects brief updates with dates in the 1940s, 1950s and even the 1970s, and the editors provide background essays to explain some of the events Roth writes about. All in all, the package is an excellent brief introduction to the Great Depression, with anecdotes that will resonate with today's readers.

In addition to his comments about the lack of work for lawyers, doctors, dentists and other professionals during the entire period of his evocative diary, Roth records the travails of working class people at a time of industrial strife and massive unemployment. He doesn't neglect the plight of farmers in Ohio and other Midwestern farm belt states, including the epicenter of farm foreclosures, the state of Iowa. Roth devotes a great deal of space in his diary to real estate, which must have been a big part of his law firm's business before October 1929 -- and very little after with the almost total collapse of the nation's real estate industry.

Roth was a Republican who voted for Hoover's re-election in 1932 when FDR won in a landslide, and for Alf Landon in 1936 when FDR swamped Landon in an even bigger landslide. In 1940 Roth campaigned for GOP Presidential candidate Wendell Willkie on a "no third term" for FDR campaign. Although he worked for the Mahoning County NRA, his beliefs that the New Deal was a socialist plot against America pervade the diary. Like people today, Roth struggled to understand how the world's largest economy could collapse so quickly after the events of October 1929. He obviously had plenty of time to read sitting in his frequently empty law offices and he cites dozens of books that he perused to educate himself about finance, investing and economics.

Here's Roth's entry for March 8, 1933, four days after FDR's inauguration:

We are greeted by a very dramatic announcement this morning. At 1:30 a.m. this morning as his first official act, President Roosevelt issues a proclamation ordering every bank in the United States to close for four days -- including the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve Banks. It now appears that during the past two weeks foreign countries and domestic depositors have withdrawn gold from the U.S. Treasury at an alarming rate. This proclamation also forbids exportation of gold. As a result of this announcement the U.S. will be technically off the gold standard for four days. I don't see how the government can resume gold payments at the end of that time because all Europe will be waiting at the Treasury doors to withdraw gold. In Youngstown every bank and loan company is closed to all business and large placards in the windows bear notice of the President's proclamation. Everybody is fearful of the immediate future. In the meantime all over U.S. plans re (sic) going forward to issue scrip against bank deposits. Likewise every stock exchange in the country is closed.

It's important to remember than before the passage of the Banking Act of 1933 -- commonly called the Glass-Steagall Act for its congressional sponsors -- later in 1933, there was no federal insurance on bank deposits. Glass-Steagall separated "boring" commercial banking and "risky" investment banking and created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Most of Glass-Steagall was discarded in the latter part of the Clinton Administration, but the FDIC was retained.

The repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 effectively removed the "Chinese Wall" that previously existed between Wall Street investment banks and depository banks and has been blamed by some -- including the present reviewer -- for exacerbating the damage caused by the collapse of the subprime mortgage market that led to the current financial crisis.

About the editors: James Ledbetter is the editor of "The Big Money," [...] Web site on business and economics. Prior to joining Slate, he was deputy managing editor of [...]a financial news site. His most recent book is Dispatches for the New York Tribune: Selected Journalism of Karl Marx. He is also the author of Starving to Death on $ [...]: The Short, Absurd Life of The Industry Standard and Made Possible By...: The Death of Public Broadcasting in the United States. He lives in New York, NY. Daniel Roth is a son of Benjamin Roth and is the chairman of the law firm of Roth, Blair, Roberts, Strasfeld & Lodge in Youngstown, Ohio. He is the co-founder of National Data Processing Corporation and the co-founder, Chairman and CEO of Torent, Inc (formerly Toro Enterprises, Inc.) He divides his time between Youngstown, Ohio and Florida.

A great perspective, August 7, 2010
This was an excellent read. This was not an exciting novel, but a chance to learn from 'Grandpa' who practiced law during the depression. You get a businessman's perspective on the business climate, the stock market and the side by side learning as Roth tries to learn the path to riches through stock investing, although he never had enough money to actually invest. Because he never could invest, his color commentary is not influenced my major gains or losses as an investor might have been. Most importantly, the reader really appreciates the Clement's quote: history does not repeat but certainly rhymes. All investors, especially speculators should read this book. ... Read more

Editorial Review

The first full-scale biography in twenty-five years of one of the most important and distinguished justices to sit on the Supreme Court–a book that reveals Louis D. Brandeis the reformer, lawyer, and jurist, and Brandeis the man, in all of his complexity, passion, and wit.

Louis Dembitz Brandeis had at least four “careers.”As a lawyer in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, he pioneered how modern law is practiced. He, and others, developed the modern law firm, in which specialists manage different areas of the law. He was the author of the right to privacy; led the way in creating the role of the lawyer as counselor; and pioneered the idea of pro bono publico work by attorneys. As late as 1916, when Brandeis was nominated to the Supreme Court, the idea of pro bono service still struck many old-time attorneys as somewhat radical.

Between 1895 and 1916, when Woodrow Wilson named Brandeis to the Supreme Court, he ranked as one of the nation’s leading progressive reformers. Brandeis invented savings bank life insurance in Massachusetts (he considered it his most important contribution to the public weal) and was a driving force in the development of the Federal Reserve Act, the Clayton Antitrust Act, and the law establishing the Federal Trade Commission.

Brandeis as an economist and moralist warned in 1914 that banking and stock brokering must be separate, and twenty yearslater, during the New Deal, his recommendation was finallyenacted into law (the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933) but wasundone by Ronald Reagan, which led to the savings-and-loan crisis in the 1980s and the world financial collapse of 2008.

We see Brandeis, who came from a family of reformers and intellectuals who fled Europe and settled in Louisville. Brandeis the young man coming of age, who presented himself at Harvard Law School and convinced the school to admit him even though he was underage. Brandeis the lawyer and reformer, who in 1908 agreed to defend an Oregon law establishing maximum hours for women workers, and in so doing created an entirely new form of appellate brief that had only a few pages of legal citation and consisted mostly of factual references.

Urofsky writes how Brandeis witnessed and suffered from the anti-Semitism rampant in the early twentieth century and, though not an observant Jew, with the outbreak of the Great War in 1914, became at age fifty-eight head of the American Zionist movement. During the next seven years, Brandeis transformed it from a marginal activity into a powerful force in American Jewish affairs.

We see the brutal six-month confirmation battle after Wilson named the fifty-nine-year-old Brandeis to the court in 1916; the bitter fight between progressives and conservative leaders of the bar, finance, and manufacturing, who, while neverdirectly attacking him as a Jew, described Brandeis as “a striver,”“self-advertiser,”“a disturbing element in any gentleman’s club.” Even the president of Harvard, A. Lawrence Lowell, signed a petition accusing Brandeis of lacking “judicial temperament.” And we see, finally, how, during his twenty-three years on the court, this giant of a man and an intellect developed the modern jurisprudence of free speech, the doctrine of a constitutionally protected right to privacy, and suggested what became known as the doctrine of incorporation, by which the Bill of Rights came to apply to the states.

Brandeis took his seat when the old classical jurisprudence still held sway, and he tried to teach both his colleagues and the public– especially the law schools–that the law had to change to keep up with the economy and society. Brandeis often said, “My faith in time is great.” Eventually the Supreme Court adopted every one of his dissents as the correct constitutional interpretation.

A huge and galvanizing biography, a revelation of one man’s effect on American society and jurisprudence, and the electrifying story of his time. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Near the beginning of The Autobiography of an Execution, David Dow lays his cards on the table. "People think that because I am against the death penalty and don't think people should be executed, that I forgive those people for what they did. Well, it isn't my place to forgive people, and if it were, I probably wouldn't.I'm a judgmental and not very forgiving guy. Just ask my wife."

It this spellbinding true crime narrative, Dow takes us inside of prisons, inside the complicated minds of judges, inside execution-administration chambers, into the lives of death row inmates (some shown to be innocent, others not) and even into his own home--where the toll of working on these gnarled and difficult cases is perhaps inevitably paid. He sheds insight onto unexpected phenomena-- how even religious lawyer and justices can evince deep rooted support for putting criminals to death-- and makes palpable the suspense that clings to every word and action when human lives hang in the balance. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Here at last are the best of Dermot Meagher's tales of life as a judge in Boston Municipal Court, where he presided over real-life cases rivaling the best of David E. Kelley's The Practice, Boston Legal, and Ally McBeal. These true-to-life stories, some of which first appeared in Boston and DoubleTake magazines, showcase a writer of rare talent and humor: a Harvard-educated "man of the people," who has seen it all yet never lost his ability to be surprised by the parade of humanity that came before his bench--from the offbeat to the curiously affecting to the downright tragic (not to mention tragicomic). A wise, wry, and disarmingly humane observer of human foibles, Judge Meagher waives judicial discretion and deliberates in a way more familiar to literature than to any court of law (but with names changed to protect the innocent as well as the not-so-innocent).Judge Meagher's great achievement in Judge Sentences is to give us a voice of justice rendered as kindness and humor rather than judgment and discipline. In these hugely appealing and provocative tales of dysfunction and conflict, readers have the privilege of experiencing a side of Boston (and America) that is otherwise largely hidden from public view. Real life often is stranger than fiction, and Judge Meagher shows us just how strange--and how urgent and real--it can be. ... Read more

Editorial Review

A New York Times Notable Book of 1996

It was in tolling the death of Chief Justice John Marshall in 1835 that the Liberty Bell cracked, never to ring again. An apt symbol of the man who shaped both court and country, whose life “reads like an early history of the United States,” as the Wall Street Journal noted, adding: Jean Edward Smith “does an excellent job of recounting the details of Marshall’s life without missing the dramatic sweep of the history it encompassed.”

Working from primary sources, Jean Edward Smith has drawn an elegant portrait of a remarkable man. Lawyer, jurist, scholars; soldier, comrade, friend; and, most especially, lover of fine Madeira, good food, and animated table talk: the Marshall who emerges from these pages is noteworthy for his very human qualities as for his piercing intellect, and, perhaps most extraordinary, for his talents as a leader of men and a molder of consensus. A man of many parts, a true son of the Enlightenment, John Marshall did much for his country, and John Marshall: Definer of a Nation demonstrates this on every page.
... Read more

Reviews

This book is a prize!, March 7, 2000
I am neither a historian nor an academic. But I am a journalist who covers the courts, and I have frequently heard attorneys mutter this or that about the "infamous" Marbury v. Madison decision. I bought the book after visiting the Supreme Court and read it immediately upon my return. Smith's narrative is well paced. And the historic content is not presented like a textbook or even a well-written academic tome. Rather, it reads like a biography should, telling the tale based on letters and other memorabilia and done so without excessive interpretation. While I was aware of Marshall's significant place in history in terms of Marbury v. Madison, I had no idea of his key roles in other events that shaped our nation. If you like history but don't like academic minutia, you will love this book as I have.

An excellent biography and overview of early American history from a different perspective, August 31, 2006
What a book and what a topic for a non-lawyer, early American history buff. I actually feel smarter now!

Seriously, Jean Edward Smith does a great job of pulling a tremendous amount of primary source material into a seamlessly integrated biography on US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall. In large part, because of all the primary source quotes, the book reads slowly, but without videos, photographs, and voice recordings, that's the best way to learn about historical figures from that era. Smith's own writing, research, and overall understanding of the material and ability to convey that to the reader is excellent.

I was not aware that John Marshall was so involved in Virginia politics after the War and was asked multiple times by fellow Virginian George Washington to take on major positions, only to be rebuffed. He was so highly admired even before he entered the Supreme Court. So, the first 300 pages cover Marshall's career leading up to his nomination. The next 200+ pages cover his tenure on the Supreme Court.

What is really nice, though, about the way Smith handles the biography, is that he constantly brings back recurring theme's in Marshall's life, whether it is Marshall's ability to get along with people from either side of the aisle and his remarkable affability and love of Madeira wine, or his plain old good judgment and belief in the supremacy of the Union, or his dedication to his job and the country and his ability to strengthen the Supreme Court by striving for unanimous decisions and collegiality among the individual Supreme Court justices.

And obviously, Smith does a good job of putting the importance of Marshall's decisions in perspective in his time and today. I've read perhaps 40 books on early American history, but John Marshall and the role of the Supreme Court has always been a black box or a side story. Smith does a great job of fleshing this out for me. Additionally, as always it is interesting to view history from different perspectives, and this book does a nice job of doing that all the way from the War of Independence through Andrew Jackson's reign.

Thank you Jean Edward Smith for your efforts.

A full, complete life of an amazing American patriot, January 4, 2005
John Marshall is primarily remembered as the great chief justice who handed down many of the decisions that defined the constitutional structure, which law students read every year and judges are still dealing with nearly two centuries later. But in his wonderful biography, Smith shows the full picture of Marshall and his significant influence prior to his chief justiceship. Marshall was a soldier during the Revolution who later entered Virginia politics somewhat unwillingly. He was a well respected lawyer who eventually earned a sizable fortune, unlike most of his contemporaries who inherited theirs. Smith provides all of this in a clear and detailed manner. Also, he avoids one of the great problems that biographers of the founding era have: the extreme focus many place upon private lives of these men while limiting coverage of their public acts. Smith explains Marshall's private life without obsessing on it unnecessarily.

Of course, most purchasers of this book are looking for information on Marshall's years on the bench and his impact upon the Constitution. All of the cases one would expect are dealt with in a thorough manner: Marbury, McCullough, Martin, Gibbons. The best part is of this book is that Smith goes beyond these great cases and provides detail on earlier caselaw that demonstrates Marshall's, and the Court's, commitment to nationalistic constitutional interpretations well before the seminal cases. This defeats criticism that claims Marshall had no support for his arguments, a criticism that develops from his habit of not citing to precedent. Particularly, some of the early unknown cases dealt with interesting issues of the war power and international law.

Smith's biography is detailed and compelling, I couldn't put it down. Even though I have a pretty strong knowledge of constitutional history and of the Marshall era, Smith's book provided a wealth of information on details that I had little idea even existed. I would strongly recommend it to both people interested in legal history as well as those interested more broadly in political history.

Forgotten Giant, May 8, 2006
I don't think that there are any major monuments to John Marshall in the United States. He is nowhere to be found on the Mall in Washington, his face isn't carved into any mountains, and his image doesn't grace any form of national currency. Yet, if one were challenged to make a short list of individual Americans who had the greatest influence on the structure of our government and whose actions have reverberated down to our every day life, John Marshall would have to be on it.

For all intents and purposes, John Marshall defined the role of the Supreme Court in American government. As biographer Jean Edward Smith notes, when Marshall was suddenly appointed by John Adams to replace Oliver Ellsworth as Chief Justice in 1800, "he assumed leadership of a court that enjoyed little prestige and even less authority." When he died 36 years later he left a Court that was a bastion of stability, unity and respect in government and whose reputation was the highest in the land.

Although the majority of the book focuses quite naturally on Marshall's storied career as Chief Justice, Smith does highlight the long and varied service he gave to his country before joining the Court in 1801. Marshall was a valiant officer in the American Revolution, present at the battles of Brandywine, Germantown and Yorktown, and suffered the privations of Valley Forge (where he bunked with James Monroe). He became a celebrity when his tough stance against Talleyrand in the XYZ Affair became public knowledge in America in 1798 and he served in Congress and then briefly as Secretary of State in the administration of John Adams, where Marshall was a rare friend and political soul mate to the tortured Yankee president.

But the bulk of Smith's narrative is devoted to the so-called Marshall Court, especially the 1812-1823 court that decided many of the most important constitutional cases -- Martin v. Hunter's Lessee (1816), McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819), Cohens v. Virginia (1821), Gibbons v. Ogden (1824) -- and was the longest period of stability in membership in the history of the Supreme Court. Smith stresses that the Marshall Court and their famed decisions were a true team effort and not at all dominated by the Chief Justice as many have suggested. Rather, Smith argues that the Court was built on mutual respect, open dialogue (fueled by generous consumption of Madeira every night), and a strong sense of camaraderie that was fostered by the communal living that Marshall demanded of all the justices. Smith argues that the unanimous "opinion of the court" verdicts that many Republicans loathed, Thomas Jefferson especially, were a product of genuine consensus and intellectual agreement amongst the justices on the fundamental questions of constitutionality. One of the striking things about this period is that some powerful president who hated Marshall and the power of the Federal judiciary, such as Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, made appointments that were solid and politically moderate, and ultimately proved highly congenial to Chief Justice Marshall and his views, a fact that particularly galled Jefferson.

Much has been made of the mutual animosity between Jefferson and Marshall, and Smith confirms that the dislike was real and intense. However, Smith also argues that it was the extremists in both parties that forced the two great Virginians in the ring against one another. Both Marshall and Jefferson preferred conciliation and accommodation, he writes, but the High Federalists on the Right and extreme Republicans on the Left would have none of it. In Smith's estimation, Marshall was sincerely committed to creating a robust, but non-partisan and totally independent judiciary and in no way was a tool to the discredited Federalists.

Smith peppers the narrative with anecdotes that add life to the inherently dull nature of legal proceedings. For instance, in his review of the Yazoo land claim case that culminated in the landmark court decision in Fletcher v. Peck (1810), Smith tells how the Georgia legislature rescinded the original land sale legislation by using a magnifying glass in the noonday sun to literally torch the document with the rays of heaven. And then, during the Supreme Court proceedings, Chief Justice Marshall had to call a recess so Luther Martin, the famed trial lawyer and notorious inebriate who was representing Fletcher, could sober up.

Overall, the book is well-written and clear in composition. A few editorial changes could have made it even more readable. For instance, each chapter has 3 or 4 subtopics that Smith addresses one by one, but there are no breaks in the chapter. The paragraphs and themes just roll on one after the other. All that is needed is hitting the return key one extra time after each sub-section, but for some reason the editors decided not to do that. Also, the author uses detailed footnotes all throughout the book. In some cases, every page of a chapter, or close to it, has substantial footnotes elucidating some point made in the main narrative. I found these footnotes helpful, but they greatly interupted the flow of the narrative. Every few paragraphs the reader is hopping down to the footnote to get more background. Smith should have either tied the detail into the storyline or moved the content to the endnotes.

In closing, it is worth noting that Smith doesn't paper over Marshall's personal failings and some commonly held opinions of the man. For instance, Marshall had a reputation for indolence, which is surprising given how many Supreme Court decisions he authored and the five-volume official biography on George Washington he penned. Marshall was also a man of ambition in a period when such feelings and the concern with popularity and public opinion were considered especially ignoble. Finally, Smith suggests that money dominated many of Marshall's actions. He maintains that Marshall accepted the envoy assignment to Paris that led to the XYZ Affair primarily because he needed to raise money in Europe to complete a land purchase in Virginia and that his acceptance of the Secretary of State and then Chief Justice posts were driven by the financial compensation.

For anyone interested in the Founding Fathers and the Supreme Court in particular, Jean Edward Smith's "John Marshall" is a can't miss.

Complete picture of Marshall the man, not just the jurist, May 5, 2004
This is one of the best biographies I have read in recent years. While Marshall is best remembered today as the great Chief Justice and the originator of the notion of judicial review, Smith very much shows that there was more to the man, both public & private, than the few nuggets we all got in our Intro to American History classes.

In fact, the bulk of the book deals not with Marshall's 35 years on the bench, but with his other activities as a soldier, politician, diplomat and Secretary of State. One is left with profound admiration for Marshall's political skills while in Congress and in the Cabinet. As a moderate Federalist from Virginia, Marshall was in a tight spot, to say the least. His state was increasingly dominated with Jeffersonian Republicans who had little trust for the man, but on the other hand, the High Federalists from New England were more than a little suspicious of any Virginian, even one of their own party. Smith portrays a skillful politician & deal-maker who is able to walk deftly between the two camps and actually managed to get a few things done. One cannot help but wonder if the Federalist Party might have survived if Marshall had been at its helm or had been a Federalist candidate for president.

Marshall's time as a diplomat, spent in France during the years of the Directorate, also reveal him to be a canny negotiator who was more than equal to the task of dealing Talleyrand, the ultimate conniver of his time. Despite his somewhat rustic origins, Marshall was quite capable of adapting to the surroundings of the most cosmopolitan city in Europe, but without yielding to the corruption expected by the French bureaucracy.

All of this work by Smith shows that Marshall did not enter the Chief Justice's chair as a blank slate --- in fact, he already had a lifetime's experience in a myriad of different professions, and this no doubt contributed in large part to his great influence on the Court's development. I would suspect that his background is more impressive and varied than any of the Chief Justices that have succeeded him.

Unlike a lot of judicial histories, Smith does not get bogged down in the minutiae of the court decisions. In fact, relatively little time is spent discussing the decisions themselves, except for those that truly could be considered definitive. 35 years of court decisions could easily have made this an unworkable biography for Smith, who spends more time examining how Marshall, using his experience as a diplomat & legislator, was able to lead the court effectively and get it to render, for the most part, unanimous decisions.

Although Marshall & Thomas Jefferson were well-known as cousins who had a very strong mutual dislike of each other, Smith does not beat the reader over the head with this fact. Nor does Smith, despite his obvious partiality for Marshall, engage in excessive Jefferson-bashing. If anything, he gives Jefferson the benefit of the doubt, particularly in regards to the 1805 impeachment of Justice Chase. Smith regards the affair as being largely the making of rogue Congressional Republicans such as John Randolph of Roanoke (another cousin), although many historians believe that Jefferson had a much greater hand in instigating the affair.

The most Smith will criticize Jefferson on is his capacity for self-delusion, particularly where it concerned the Supreme Court. Jefferson came to regard the Marshall Court as an instrument of the Federalists, despite the fact that 5 of the 7 justices were Republican appointees. I find this to be an amusing parallel to modern-day criticism of the Court by some pundits, who view it as dominated by liberals --- despite the fact that 7 of the 9 justices have been appointed by Republican presidents. Evidently, some things never change.

This would also be a useful book for those critics of the court who feel that justices are too politically involved these days. A study of Court's history shows that rarely have the justices been political eunuchs, and certainly Marshall was no exception. Many of his decisions on the court, although he was careful not to run amok with judicial authority, were calculated as parries to the thrusts to various political extremists such as Spencer Roane (who, like most of the states'-rights crowd, comes off quite badly in this book, as Smith portrays him as being hopelessly out of step with the nations' evolution). Marshall as much as anyone was responsible for defining the notion that the federal government ultimately has authority over the respective states in national matters, a notion that would be put to the test a quarter century after Marshall's death.

Not only is this an informative book, but it is also very well-written and engaging. Do not let the 700+ pages daunt you, as the narrative flows quite briskly and will not bog the reader down. For most of us who know only know Marshall in connection with Marbury vs Madison, there is a lot more to the man than that --- this book will more than fill in the blank spaces.

Mike, December 18, 2000
This is a good read about a fascinating individual. John Marshall is clearly one of the most underrated shapers of our country and this book goes a long way in providing the texture and context of his life. The author does a good job of balancing history with legal scholarship and I believe that this is worthwhile for both the "lay-man" and the "law-man". I did believe that the author abridged the content a bit too much at times(for example, he did not cover Marshall's point of view on the Declaration of Independence or Articles of Confederation, and he covered the last 12 years of Marshall's life as Chief Justice in less than 50 pages), but overall, it was a solid investment of my time.

Excellent, balanced biography, December 5, 1998
Although a long-time Jefferson fan, I could not put this book down about his "nemesis". Marshall turns out to have been every bit as patriotic, anti-party and fair minded as Jefferson is reputed to have been. As the author points out, it is hard to believe how two men that were so alike could dislike each other so much. Rather than ascertain the cause of their dislike, the author was very honest in stating that there doesn't seem to be any one particular instance to give reason to such enmity. As a matter of fact, the two men were related and Jefferson, as president, had appointed Marshall's father to an important surveyor's post. The author goes to great length to give Jefferson his due and to not be vindictive. While the author obviously likes Marshall, he does not play favorites or make excuses for his subject. He explains both men's actions and motivations and stresses that both were generally after the same goals for America. As he has in recent works, Jefferson did come across as a bit petulant and vindictive in some of his actions and reactions. I couldn't help many times agreeing with Marshall's points of view when looked at from a practical or legal point (independence of the courts, commerce clause protection, laws of contracts, strong national government and anti-nullification). He was also anti-slavery in a mild, southern way. Mr. Marshall comes across as a very bright, unpretentious, extremely likable man to friend and foe alike. He was able to prevent political differences from damaging friendships and always displayed a big heart (including leading local efforts to raise money to help the estate of the deceased Jefferson). Because of his personality and leadership style, this man was able to dignify the Supreme Court's position and led it to record an astounding proportion of unanimous decisions, helping the court not to avoid looking divided on important issues. The book is very well written and despite its apparent thickness it was a delight to read about such a relatively little-known giant in our history. I rank Marshall and Madison as probably the two least credited men in our history for getting the republic on firm ground and for tempering the extreme positions that people like Jefferson, Patrick Henry, state rightists and several High Federalists were advocating. No student or aficionado should miss reading this important work.

Past Sheds Light On Present, March 26, 1997
Those who decry the current state of judicial affairs in this country will be interested to learn that our modern court system has changed very little since its inception back in the 18th Century. This, along with many other scholarly insights, is the compelling undercurrent running through Jean Edward Smith's John Marshall: Definer of a Nation.

Smith, no stranger to scholarship himself, guides the reader in painstaking detail through the rise of one of the most renoun jurists of early American history, John Marshall. Marshall, who served his country first as a soldier under General George Washington and later as the first truly influential chief justice of the Supreme Court, is a figure ripe for investigation at this particularly legal-oriented period in our history. For it was Marshall who, in his landmark decision, Marbury v. Madison, first gave rise to the notion of judicial review, the concept that suggests that the Supreme Court indeed has final say over the constitutionality of a given state action.

What is fascinating about Marshall's life is how bitterly he had to fight to establish what we today take for granted, the Court's supreme authority. Marshall's relentless pursuit of a powerful judiciary was often at odds with the vision of his fellow founding father, Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson, who pushed for a small, decentralized federal government in a largely agrarian America, was constanly at odds with Marshall, and the tale of their stormy political battles resonates throughout the pages of Smith's biography.

Of course, the philosophical musings and feindishly political battles of our founding fathers may not make for interesting reading for everyone. Smith's book is chock full of obscure anectdotes and oftentimes difficult-to-get-through detail. All the same, the interested reader seeking to understand just how our current court system got to be this way can do worse than pick up Smith's tome for some insight. For, in the end, the battles fought between America's early political titans bear a strong correlation to -- and perhaps even explain -- blips on the judicial radar screen now called things like "O.J."

Better than my constitutional law class., May 16, 2003
I pretty much only read biographies. Of all the ones I have read, this is one of the best. I put in the same group as Robert Caro's LBJ books, Edmund Morriss' first biography of Teddy Rooseveldt (2nd wasn't quite as good), the Last Lion series on Churchill, the Manchester bio on MacArthur, and Mcullogh's Truman book. Those are the ones I really enjoyed reading the most.

This book is a mix between biography, history, and legal principles. All 3 parts were interesting. In law school, we spent much time studying Marbury v. Madison, but this book really put it in a great perspective, setting up one of the major themes of the book--the debate between Federalists and Republicans, ie Marshall and Jefferson.

The Federalist-Republican theme really helped put much of the reading into perspective, explaining Marshall's beleif in a strong central government and his philosophy in deciding the big cases like Marbury, Gibbons, Dartmouth College, Mcullough v. MD, and many others.

For me, this was one of those books I felt proud to have read. Marshall played an enormous role in shaping the Court, and I hardly knew a thing about him before this book. The author has a nice smooth style, and packs each sentence with research. I repsect the effort such a book must have taken.

The TRUE Powers That Be, November 4, 2003
John Marshall is without a doubt the most influential man in the history of this country. In a sense, his imporance and influence parallelled that of Washington in that the precedents he established became the tradition which lasted. Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, Adams obtained European aid, Madison authored the Constitution but in the overall scheme of things, the shape and direction of our country, its economy and balance of powers, its legal and political system was virtually set by the power of one man - John Marshall.

What is even more amazing is how singular he was and how his stewardship was a near miss. At a time when it seemed the whole country converted to anti-Federalisism and the Federalist party disappeared, there was Marshall, stalwart to the end. WIth a vigor that lasted to the end, he fought the Jeffersonians and their vision of America as a pastoral, agrarian society of gentlemen farmers. His rulings established the basis for the corporate capitalist system of property rights that has given this nation a level of prosperity never before seen.

More important, his rulings on Constitutional interpretation established the Supreme Court as the final arbiter of political decisions - something particularly handy in the 2000 election. Although Marshall represented a "strict Constructionist" viewpoint in the sense that he decried expansion of Federal power in what he deemed the wrong direction, i.e. the Jeffersonian direction, he was not averse to using the Federal government when the issue warranted. When he died he was the last of the "old school" but he set the pattern that has been adhered to every since.

Theh book is quite readable, the research admirable and can be understood by historian, lawyer or layman. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Editorial Review

For some people, happy hour is never enough

This is a book about escape. It's also about laughing gas. And bourbon and dope and sex and mushrooms and every other vice millions of us indulge in to forget our jobs, the office, and the stifling, corporate caricatures we're forced to become for paychecks. This is a book about a decade lost in a senseless career no one likes and all the ridiculous things I did to run from it. In the end, it's probably your story as much as mine. We're everywhere. We just can't say it out loud.

Reviews

Entertaining, Accurate, and Insightful, October 2, 2008
Half-memoir, half-gonzo, Happy Hour Is For Amateurs is greater than the sum of its autobiographical parts. Ultimately, the book is a morality play; the deadly sins are sacrificing happiness for a paycheck and perpetuating the status quo in a morally bankrupt industry.

Some readers may object to the author's profanity and depiction of drug and alcohol use--of course, some readers call Mark Twain "racist" and Aldous Huxley "immoral." In other words, if you have a weak constitution or delicate sensibilities, this book probably isn't for you.

This book is for: (1) every worker who's ever felt like a cog or an itinerant, (2) every person who thinks, "this is as good as it gets for me," and (3) anyone who enjoys funny, insightful writing on topics most people can relate to. From the book: "There's an accidental wisdom in following. Letting something else define you narrows the decisions you have to make. It gives you parameters, a track to follow and a holiday from all the angst that comes with carving your own path." `Following' is exactly what some people need--this book is for everyone else.

Happy Hour Is For Amateurs is not a book about being a lawyer, it's a book about being unsatisfied with what you do. (Though it's completely, depressingly accurate if you want to know what the actual practice of law is like for the majority of attorneys.) It's about settling and the push-pull of childhood dreams--and adult dreams--against the weight of responsibility and expectations. Philalawyer escaped, and most of us haven't, a fact sure to generate equal measures of envy and hostility. Either way, this book is compulsory reading for every disaffected office monkey, every fungible bureaucrat.

The writing is always serviceable and frequently soars. Some readers may quibble with the non-linear style--but this isn't a novel, and each chapter contributes something important on the way to understanding the overall ethic of the author. The momentum slows very occasionally, but the humor underlying each vignette is more than enough to
excuse the occasional digression.

Lawyers, in particular, will nod their heads in agreement or sympathy throughout Philalawyer's book. Equity partners in big law firms might not get it, and associates on the same track will probably ignore it. The rest of us will say, "Thank you," and buy him a drink.

I'm not a lawyer from Philadelphia, but I can sure as hell relate., October 2, 2008
The introductory author's note concludes with Sergeant Hulka's memorable line from Stripes "Lighten up, Francis" and it sets the tone for what's to come. Occasionally, pre-release examination copies will cross my desk, but this was the first book to inspire me to jump on Amazon and write a review.

Happy Hour is for Amateurs is not for everyone. If you're easily offended, you might do better to avoid the book. More importantly, if you rely on cognitive dissonance to get through 9-5 life, then the book might shake your fragile mental farce a little too violently.

Philadelphia Lawyer tells the story of a young man fresh out of college who is beaten down over the course of a decade in the legal profession. The lines between work and play, misery and happiness are often blurred, and each chapter is a slightly different take following an overarching theme of discontent leading to self-actualization. Perhaps the author's greatest strength is his ability to maintain a fast-paced, page-turning plot while interspersing insightful anecdotes that put into words all the random thoughts I've had about corporate culture, leaving me wondering "why the hell didn't I write this?" Yet, at the same time, I realize that it takes great craft to make life's mundanity compelling.

Philadelphia Lawyer writes like a man who isn't afraid to write. So often writers are concerned with what others might think; what literary conventions or technicalities to abide by in order to appeal to a certain crowd, but in this book the language comes relentless and unrestrained. Pop culture references from the last half century blend seamlessly with serious deliberations on legal culture and its implications on sanity. Finally, somebody is writing in an honest way about the world the forty and under population grew up in.

Immersed in a mass of workaholic drones all too eager to bill their way to the top, the narrator turns to mind-altering substances to cope with his sad reality. His sexual exploits left me laughing and cringing all at once, but the trick is Philadelphia Lawyer tells the story like you're in on the joke. One doesn't have to identify exactly with his debauchery, but instead with the potential of that act's occurrence. That maybe, if the stars had aligned differently, it might have been me running from the cops in a blizzard - merely entertaining the thought reminds us that the world isn't as serious as everyone seems to make it out to be.

Our egos are padded from childhood to make us believe there is a greater purpose behind all our actions. Despite what we're led to believe sometimes life really is a ridiculous charade - the only purpose being that there is none. Everybody has to earn a paycheck, and the need for food and shelter is a real one. Somehow in our drive to provide, we start taking everything serious. We forget how to take a joke and laugh at ourselves. Philadelphia Lawyer reminds us that enjoying the ride is more important than the end goal.

The sad truth is that without the humor, the subject would be an unbearable read. Hardly a page goes by without negative adjectives such as "rotten" "awful" "terrible" or "atrocious." As someone unaccustomed to the legal climate, the daily drudgery experienced within the plot really begin to wear. Just when I think "this can't possible get any worse" it does. I imagine lawyers may find themselves offended, but if so, they are missing the point. Philadelphia Lawyer does not blame the players, he blames a corrupt and immoral game. Nonetheless the players - whether a thirty year old gunner looking for the next promotion or a twenty-something drug dealer looking to latch on to anything - are held responsible for their own existence.

Among all the vulgarity and belligerence there is a very real message communicated. That message will resonate differently with everyone, but "do what you love and love what you do" sums it up nicely for me. Unfortunately it takes the legal profession, a concentrated embodiment of every occupational evil, to demonstrate what we're all failing to see. The end goal of life isn't to die.

For a first effort, it's no wonder Philadelphia Lawyer is already making waves in the legal and publishing community. A fresh voice that has emerged from a thankless, empty lifestyle with something to offer all of us. Happy Hour is for Amateurs is a book I recommend to anyone that's ever sat in a pub and complained about their day.

And Francis, before you get all worked up and self-righteous, remember: if you can't laugh at yourself, then everyone else will do it for you.

Engaging, brutal and hilarious, September 22, 2008
This was an enormously entertaining book.

But before I jump into the superlatives, I think it's important to make a distinction between this book and the other bourbon-soaked tales of anal sex and professionally hazardous hangovers that this emerging genre has seen over the past few years. This book is more than the sum of its drugs, fornication and booze - it is a crushing social critique of a respected profession and of thousands of its practitioners. The author attacks the American legal system as a complicit antihero, publishing a decade worth of subversion. He portrays the frenetic courtroom, the golden shackles that bind him to his work and the familiar (for some of us) haze of substance abuse. Based on 10 years that would have driven most to a Xanax prescription, he manages to write one of the funniest books I've ever read.

And that's really what matters, right? Sure, there are strokes of brilliance and the sort of introspection that makes you want to step back and re-examine your own life. But there is also a swimsuit model trying to shoot herself in the face with a taser, a hockey team locked in the back of a Uhaul with a keg and few naked lesbians thrown in for good measure. And that's what life should be about.

Formulating my thoughts on this book took me a little while. This is due in part, I feel, to the author's willful disregard for the molds I like to fit books into. It's refreshing to read books like this - ones that challenge you. Fortunately, for all its complexity, it never loses itself; the tangents of the narrative never detract from the point. It is painfully funny and brutally honest; the sordid confession from a man who is not the least bit sorry.

I recommend it wholeheartedly.

A career in law, no thanks, October 5, 2008
From the time I was a kid my parents said law might be a good career choice for me. I wanted to be a professional soccer player at the time, but you might as well have a backup plan. Naturally it seemed like a good choice because I loved to argue. And why not, I was good at it. It wasn't until I was a little bit older when I looked around at my friend's parents who were lawyers, former lawyers-turned-professors, and realized that not many of them enjoyed the job. And if they didn't, how would I?

Happy Hour Is For Amateurs gives a great account of exactly what is wrong with the profession. Philadelphia Lawyer explains exactly the type of people that you will meet on your journey through "the world's worst profession." Billable hours, awful partners, golden handcuffs. The writer takes you on a journey with his life as the guide.

Where Philadelphia Lawyer truly shines in this book though is in his absolutely astute observational ability. He picks up on societal cues, work culture, nuances, and interesting subtleties about everyday life. And when you sit down and think about it you realize how right Philadelphia Lawyer is. He sees the world with a focused lens for deconstruction and explanation.

Whether the writer is talking about life in college, the terrible age of 26, or working in that career you loathe going to, his assertions are always clever and correct. An amazing gift in my opinion.

Ten years is a long time in a career as soul-breaking as law, but if there is one thing Philadelphia Lawyer cemented in my mind. It is that I am truly glad I did not take the gentle advice of my parents and start a career in law. If this book is an indicator of what might happen to a person trapped, I wonder what would have happened to me?

Reading that deserves to be billed hourly, October 2, 2008
Happy Hour Is for Amateurs conveys a friend-to-friend type of honesty that is rarely exposed in the professional world, without having to buy the drinks. Blindly diving into a profession that seemed good in theory, PhilaLawyer begins to notice that a paycheck fails to rationalize the tedious and mind numbing work. To get away from a career path that repels his zest for discovery and recklessness, PhilaLawyer undergoes countless daring and exciting adventures in attempts to escape the boredom and exhaustion. Progressing towards a goal that is often uncertain, motivated by anything that drowns out the work, many life affirming lessons and self-discoveries are weaved into the page-turning stories.

PhilaLawyer has a unique ability to methodically deconstruct and observe obscure situations in a way that make the book a true pleasure to read. From cover to cover the book progresses nicely and never looses its appeal. Balancing stories of debauchery and legal insight, sometimes both, the book offers a glimpse into the life of a very interesting man who is as much a lawyer as he is an inebriate and modern philosopher. PhilaLawyer understands things all too well; trapped a world where he must maintain a split personality to fuel his better half.

"To Evil!", August 12, 2008

If Hunter S. Thompson had gone to law school, August 8, 2008

Ever get that "itch"? This book explains why., December 26, 2009
Summary: This book provides not only laughs but details why choosing any profession strictly for the money will end miserably. Great for people in all walks of life.

Why rate it 5 stars?:

Easy. The steady theme in the book is about that "itch" people get. It is the desire to be somewhere else or doing something else, anything other than continuing your current actions. It's that feeling that you aren't satisfied with life and that there has to be more out there. This feeling doesn't have to strike during a career, but at any point in life. If you've ever mentally screamed that the night needs a different turn or just asked yourself, "Is this it? All this work just for this?", then ideas presented in this book will definitely resonate with you.

In many ways, Happy Hour is for Amateurs is a great journal revealing the beginnings of a midlife crisis and what the man did to avert it. Each time I read it, I'm still able to extract something new out of it.

As far as the writing is concerned, it is sharp and witty. The author certainly does go on tangents but relates them back to the story at hand. I've recommended this to my friends and have passed the book around, even if they aren't future lawyers in the making. If you like humor and escapism, this is right in your wheelhouse.

Fun and entertaining, March 13, 2009
Hilarious book. Couldnt put it down once I started. Right up there with Tucker Max and that style. The Philly Lawyer adds his own twists with much more thought and perspective than T. Max. Overall, in my top 10 books I have read.

Excellent storytelling, October 6, 2008
I hate to piggyback on another review, but Charles B Fehr really nails this book. Those who dislike it seem to be expecting a book about the legal profession, when in fact it's simply about him. He just happens to be stuck in the legal profession, but one could easily swap in investment banking or any other office job and have the same experience. Anyone who has ever worked in an office can identify with the characters that drive him nuts, just as any of us who are creative, independent, and adventurous can identify with his desire to make every moment outside the office count. He mentions a 3-to-1 ratio of hours spent working to hours free on the weekend and the need to make those weekend hours "superhours" - so that they count triple. We should all live like that.

The beauty of this book is that you don't have to approve of his lifestyle decisions - drugs, boozing, promiscuous sex, etc - to enjoy the stories and come to like him (and even identify with him) in the end. He is a strong writer and a superb storyteller and the book is a great read from start to finish. Those of us who are Ten Percenters as he describes in an early chapter will absolutely love the book, but there's enough there for the other ninety percent to enjoy it as well. ... Read more