During his 34-year tenure, Justice Stevens authored more than 1000 opinions. Here, Stevens recounts the first 94 years of his life, offering an intimate account of his service on the nation's highest court.
... remarkably candid and heartening ... puckish, mildly subversive humor runs throughout the book, which is a calm and sagacious volume rendered somewhat somber by the news of his passing ... Justice Stevens recounts the major cases of his long career with an even-handed clarity ... Justice Stevens was widely known for a rare combination of shrewdness and genuine kindness, and that same combination fills his book. As the narrative progresses, readers see a deep thinker who was steadily reexamining his own beliefs; Justice Stevens clearly saw the 'making' in his book’s title as a lifelong process.
Some of the most interesting passages of the book deal with the backstory of some of the landmark cases decided during his tenure, including Bush v. Gore and District of Columbia v. Heller ... With newer appointees venerating Scalia and his restrictive approach to our Constitution, it’s refreshing to consider Stevens’ common-sense rejoinder ... The Los Angeles Times once called Stevens a 'national treasure.' At age 99, with this book, he cements that legacy.
The inspiring legacy of Justice John Paul Stevens are well represented ... if, as seems likely, the US Supreme Court is poised to embark on a voyage of regression, the book makes for wistful reading as well ... An especially interesting part of Stevens’s book is the first 130 pages or so, which recount his upbringing and training before he joined the Court ... a fascinating aspect of his memoir is his descriptions of how he sought, but often failed, to persuade his colleagues that his view of these issues was consistent with the Constitution, if not, indeed, mandated by it ... Stevens, however, ended this, his last book, without expressing the bitterness that one might expect of a great judge who saw so many of his views rejected by a majority of his colleagues.
