MixedThe Washington Post\"It’s an understandable, but regrettable, lapse [that Brookhiser focusses on politics rather than law] ... Brookhiser also underestimates the chaos and danger of the politics that he does highlight. Perhaps for that reason, he doesn’t give Marshall his full due ... John Marshall is, to be sure, entertaining and instructive — worthy to be set beside its author’s earlier works. It would be ideal reading for a student contemplating law school. And in addition to the pleasure of its prose, it may, one hopes, whet appetites for an even deeper look at the career of \'the Great Chief Justice.\' ... If Brookhiser aims to reveal the politics surrounding Marshall’s career, he disappoints somewhat at this point. A fuller political profile of the Marshall years would give the reader more of the scope of his unlikely triumph ... Brookhiser brings to vivid life the gaudy facts and seamy characters behind such great cases as Dartmouth College and McCulloch. And he summarizes the one area where Marshall’s legal imagination was lacking — the law of American slavery.\
