by Richard, A. Brisbin



Editorial Reviews

Review

"Brisbin's book on Scalia draws upon all of these traditions and more,
aspiring to be a comprehensive, almost biographical effort to explain the
elements influencing the Justice's decision-making and the make-up of his
political vision. Rich in voting data and inclusive in discussing Scalia's
most important Court of Appeals and Supreme Court decisions, the book
offers many fine arguments and observations."--David Schultz, Law and
Politics Book Review

Product Description:

"Richard Brisbin shows us another reason why Justice Scalia is unpopular
in certain precincts: In a time of value-relativism and militant identity
politics, he is the leading exponent of Enlightenment beliefs. Justice
Scalia's jurisprudence, Mr. Brisbin shows, seeks to protect our property
from bureaucrats, to require that people be treated as individuals rather
than as representatives of a class or race, and to use the rule of law as
a restraint against disorder and conflict. As an advocate of postmodernism
and a proud egalitarian, Mr. Brisbin appears to deplore these results, but
he has the fairness to acknowledge that Justice Scalia is a tenacious
exponent of the politics of reason that the Framers bequeathed to us
through a written constitution." -- John O. McGinnis, Wall Street Journal
As the leading legal voice of the American conservative movement, Supreme
Court Justice Antonin Scalia has challenged the assumptions and legal
methodology of American liberals. In this thorough and exacting study of
the development of Justice Scalia's legal principles, Richard Brisbin
explores the foundation and elaboration of the justice's conservative
political vision. After reviewing Scalia's legal experiences before
joining the Supreme Court and describing the influences on his political
and legal thought, Brisbin undertakes a detailed analysis of Scalia's
Supreme Court voting record and opinions. The conservative philosophy
emerging from Scalia's legal decisions, Brisbin argues, assumes the
legitimacy and propriety of political regimes functioning under the rule
of law. It disciplines--sometimes harshly -- inappropriate uses of liberty
and accepts the proposition that the law can serve as an effective means
to structure, interpret, and control political conflicts. The most
comprehensive study of Justice Scalia's politics and jurisprudence yet
published, Justice Antonin Scalia and the Conservative Revival joins a
vital discussion on contemporary American conservatism and the use of the
law to restrain or undermine the New Deal state.

"Rich in voting data and inclusive in discussing Scalia's most important
Court of Appeals and Supreme Court decisions, the book offers many fine
arguments and observations... There is no question that Scalia watchers
and students of the Supreme Court should read this text." -- David
Schultz, Law and Politics Book Review

"Brisbin argues that Justice Scalia's jurisprudence values order and
stability over pragmatism and experiment, relying on a majoritarian view
rather than on any nucleus of founding principles embedded in the
Constitution... He concludes that the language of Scalia's legal opinions
reinforces a politics of inequality by excluding the effect of social and
economic factors on equality under the law." -- Law and Social Inquiry

Product Details

Paperback: 474 pages
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press; Reprint edition
(November 1, 1998)
ISBN: 0801860946