It’s a provocative thesis, but one of the marvels of Robin’s razor-sharp book is how carefully he marshals his evidence. He doesn’t have to resort to elaborate speculation or armchair psychologizing, relying instead on Thomas’s speeches, interviews and Supreme Court opinions. Just as jurists make ample use of the written record, Robin does the same ... rigorous yet readable, frequently startling yet eminently persuasive ... I’m not sure I wholly agree with this diagnosis, but it isn’t every day that reading about ideas can be both so gratifying and unsettling, and Robin’s incisive and superbly argued book has made me think again.

To his great credit, Robin’s aim is to avoid facile critiques from the left of Thomas’s political and legal philosophies ... Robin engages in a close reading of Thomas’s writings in the hopes of providing a coherent description of Thomas’s political and legal philosophies as well as their historical and personal contexts ... What’s most fascinating about the book is watching Thomas’s thoughts evolve, seeing him move to the right in real time ... Corey Robin has done all US citizens a great service by reading Thomas with such care, and by providing a fascinating and original interpretation of the man who, in many cases, quietly determines the direction we are taking.

The remarkable achievement of Robin’s thoroughly researched, cogently argued work is that it makes a compelling case for what is, initially, a startling argument ... Robin, without critical commentary, displays Thomas’s many contradictions.

Thomas is, in short, a bundle of contradictions, which Corey Robin proposes to sort out in his important and well-argued book ... What makes his account distinctive is his claim that three central frameworks organize Thomas’s thought: race, capitalism and the Constitution ... Robin has produced a thoughtful and careful explication of Thomas’s core ideas, showing how they emerge partly from his biography and setting out their disturbing implications. This is as good a synthesis of Thomas’s intellectual world as we are likely to get. But Robin’s ambitious project is based on the assumption that a unified philosophy ties together Thomas’s complicated life ... Despite Robin’s valuable efforts, Thomas remains, in so many ways, an enigma.

n his determined effort to be coolly analytical and give Thomas his due, Robin can at times accord the justice an excessive solicitude...is [Thomas] really a formidable thinker, or is his thinking merely that of a Republican apparatchik skilled in bureaucratic self-promotion and intensely focused on using the power he has amassed to promote retrograde policies? This is the central question posed by Thomas’s status as one-ninth of the living American Constitution, and it is one that Robin fails to answer in a fully satisfying way ... In some readings of Thomas’s opinions, Robin can also be excessively impressed by his arguments ... Despite offering illuminating readings of Thomas’s legal and political career, The Enigma of Clarence Thomas sometimes falls victim to a talented con artist who, over the course of his long career, has seduced and traduced many observers, allies, and adversaries ... It is understandable why Robin grants Thomas a grudging respect, but alas, the seriousness of his effort to understand an ideological adversary contrasts sharply with the vapidity, cruelty, and opportunism of his subject.

...[a] provocative new book ... At the heart of Robin’s book is this extraordinary argument: Thomas 'sees something of value in the social worlds of slavery and Jim Crow,' not because he endorses bondage 'but because he believes that under those regimes African Americans developed virtues of independence and habits of responsibility, practices of self-control and institutions of patriarchal self-help, that enabled them to survive and sometimes flourish' ... Thomas has written vividly about 'the totalitarianism of segregation' and 'the dark oppressive cloud of governmentally sanctioned bigotry.' Robin collects and quotes these lines, but they don’t deter him from painting their author as an upside-of-slavery kind of judge ... Still, Robin is not hurling insults. He is deconstructing a sphinx, and his point carries the uncomfortable ring of truth. If Thomas wants to take America back to its founding, that project entails reconciling slavery and the law ... The Enigma of Clarence Thomas...deserves credit for attempting to understand the worldview of a jurist who at times can seem almost willfully perverse.

Robin...argues persuasively that Thomas’ right-wing conservatism and black nationalism make him 'the most extreme justice on the Supreme Court' ... Acknowledging that we are all trapped 'in the same historical moment' as Thomas, Robin asks readers to examine the premises underlying their own social and political views. Thomas’ 'beliefs are disturbing, even ugly,' Robin acknowledges; 'his style is brutal. I want to make us sit with that discomfort rather than swat it away.' A penetrating profile of the Supreme Court’s longest-serving justice.

In what amounts to a psychological profile of Thomas, rather than a straight biography or even legal analysis of his decisions, The Enigma of Clarence Thomas attempts to explore and explain just exactly what it is that makes the justice tick ... The arguments Robin makes for his assessment of Thomas are sound but, even though they have a logical basis in Thomas’s past, they actually shed little insight into the Thomas of today. Each step of the way, the events and influences in Thomas’s life that led him to his self-described 'Road to Damascus' turn to the right could just as easily turned him to the left. Instead, today we have a justice for whom 'enigma' may well be an understatement.

Robin....offers a radical reinterpretation of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s jurisprudence, contending that Thomas is first and foremost a kind of conservative black nationalist. ... Robin credibly mines Thomas’s speeches, opinions, and writings in support of his thesis, but the weight he gives to Thomas’s formative experiences feels overstated, and his conclusions are simultaneously too speculative and too pat to sway skeptics. Nonetheless, this novel view of the often-inscrutable Thomas will give court watchers food for thought.