With clear-minded authority, Banner tells the story of a crucial, but misunderstood, part of the constitutional structure.
The fiery language directed at SCOTUS obscures a fascinating, complex story, says this engaging book.
The past decade has seen waves of vitriol directed at the Supreme Court from one side or another, so it is refreshing to find a book that sets out the institution’s history without histrionics. Banner is a distinguished legal academic who has written a series of interesting books, including How the Indians Lost Their Land, The Death Penalty, and The Decline of Natural Law, and his intention here is to explain how the Court has operated since its founding. A point that is often missed is that the Court focuses on appeals, judicial review, and technical issues of law. It can, if it chooses, hear cases where the facts are in dispute, but those are unusual. It is often seen as leaning toward the conservative side of the spectrum, but in the 1960s and 1970s it was certainly of a liberal bent. Critics often claimed, then, that in decisions like Miranda, Brown, and Roe, it was ignoring public opinion, going beyond its constitutional role, and creating disruption. When the Court became more conservative, its previous supporters and opponents switched sides and arguments, apparently without a hint of irony. Banner lays out the reasoning in recent cases like Dobbs but is scrupulously evenhanded, offering no opinion about the legal merits of either the decision or the dissent. He notes that calls for changing the Court to affect decisions, such as by increasing the number of judges, are not new but have never received much support. For its part, the Court often shows a surprising independent streak. Banner avoids jargon wherever possible, and the result is a book that is accessible, intelligent, and colorful.
With clear-minded authority, Banner tells the story of a crucial, but misunderstood, part of the constitutional structure.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2024
ISBN: 9780197780350
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
A top-notch political memoir and serious exercise in practical politics for every reader.
In the first volume of his presidential memoir, Obama recounts the hard path to the White House.
In this long, often surprisingly candid narrative, Obama depicts a callow youth spent playing basketball and “getting loaded,” his early reading of difficult authors serving as a way to impress coed classmates. (“As a strategy for picking up girls, my pseudo-intellectualism proved mostly worthless,” he admits.) Yet seriousness did come to him in time and, with it, the conviction that America could live up to its stated aspirations. His early political role as an Illinois state senator, itself an unlikely victory, was not big enough to contain Obama’s early ambition, nor was his term as U.S. Senator. Only the presidency would do, a path he painstakingly carved out, vote by vote and speech by careful speech. As he writes, “By nature I’m a deliberate speaker, which, by the standards of presidential candidates, helped keep my gaffe quotient relatively low.” The author speaks freely about the many obstacles of the race—not just the question of race and racism itself, but also the rise, with “potent disruptor” Sarah Palin, of a know-nothingism that would manifest itself in an obdurate, ideologically driven Republican legislature. Not to mention the meddlings of Donald Trump, who turns up in this volume for his idiotic “birther” campaign while simultaneously fishing for a contract to build “a beautiful ballroom” on the White House lawn. A born moderate, Obama allows that he might not have been ideological enough in the face of Mitch McConnell, whose primary concern was then “clawing [his] way back to power.” Indeed, one of the most compelling aspects of the book, as smoothly written as his previous books, is Obama’s cleareyed scene-setting for how the political landscape would become so fractured—surely a topic he’ll expand on in the next volume.
A top-notch political memoir and serious exercise in practical politics for every reader.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6316-9
Page Count: 768
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
IN THE NEWS
IN THE NEWS
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
