Rating: 
Summary: Paradigm Shifting
Review: A previous reviewer said that this book changed the way he looked at the judicial branch of government. I share that experience. It is rare for one book to cause what I call a "paradigm shift," but The Tempting of America is such a book. Simply put, the Supreme Court has periodically taken too much power for itself to overrule democratically-made decisions. Such actions should be performed sparingly, in accordance with strict Constitutional interpretation. This has not been the case since at least 1962. As a result, political discourse has been impoverished, and the people have lost a significant amount of self-governance. The rule of lawyers and judges arises from a strong elitism, conscious or unconscious, that ordinary people cannot be trusted to reach the "right" results in their decision-making. As a former law student and lawyer, I can confirm that this is the case, and it depresses, angers and frightens me. I am grateful to Robert Bork for telling it like it is. I hope more law students will read this book and be challenged by it.
Rating:
Summary: Paradigm Shifting
Review: A previous reviewer said that this book changed the way he looked at the judicial branch of government. I share that experience. It is rare for one book to cause what I call a "paradigm shift," but The Tempting of America is such a book. Simply put, the Supreme Court has periodically taken too much power for itself to overrule democratically-made decisions. Such actions should be performed sparingly, in accordance with strict Constitutional interpretation. This has not been the case since at least 1962. As a result, political discourse has been impoverished, and the people have lost a significant amount of self-governance. The rule of lawyers and judges arises from a strong elitism, conscious or unconscious, that ordinary people cannot be trusted to reach the "right" results in their decision-making. As a former law student and lawyer, I can confirm that this is the case, and it depresses, angers and frightens me. I am grateful to Robert Bork for telling it like it is. I hope more law students will read this book and be challenged by it.
Rating:
Summary: Paradigm Shifting
Review: A previous reviewer said that this book changed the way he looked at the judicial branch of government. I share that experience. It is rare for one book to cause what I call a "paradigm shift," but The Tempting of America is such a book. Simply put, the Supreme Court has periodically taken too much power for itself to overrule democratically-made decisions. Such actions should be performed sparingly, in accordance with strict Constitutional interpretation. This has not been the case since at least 1962. As a result, political discourse has been impoverished, and the people have lost a significant amount of self-governance. The rule of lawyers and judges arises from a strong elitism, conscious or unconscious, that ordinary people cannot be trusted to reach the "right" results in their decision-making. As a former law student and lawyer, I can confirm that this is the case, and it depresses, angers and frightens me. I am grateful to Robert Bork for telling it like it is. I hope more law students will read this book and be challenged by it.
Rating:
Summary: A work of brilliant, eye-opening legal analysis!
Review: As a law student in my final year of law school, I have taken three courses dealing with constitutional law from professors who are experts in the field. In "The Tempting of America," Judge Bork brilliantly sums up the evolution of judicial activism. You learn of the transformations this activism has undergone, and Judge Bork provides an excellent analysis of the landmark cases demonstrating such activism (Dred Scott; Lochner; Roe v. Wade; etc.-in other words, essentially all the key cases you'd need to know about).
From this backdrop, Judge Bork moves into his argument in favor of "original understanding" of the Constitution. Now, perhaps I am a little biased in that I was already in agreement with this theory prior to reading this book, but nevertheless Judge Bork details the most compelling argument in its favor that I've read yet. In addition, unlike many books on the subject, Judge Bork chronicles the arguments against "original understanding" and the arguments specifically in favor of other theories of constitutional interpretation.
I would highly recommend irrespective of your legal education. While it may be a little tougher read for those untrained in the law, it will provide such valuable insight that it is worth the effort.
Rating: 
Summary: Well-articulated, but occasionally long-winded
Review: Bork does a terrific job of making a logical argument in favor of interpreting the Consitutuon (and any other law) according to the original understanding of the legislators who ratified it. He cites numerous examples of judicial legislation, in which the originial intentions of various laws were ignored by Justices in favor of those Justices' opinions of what "ought to be," and by showing how this trend has become more common since the New Deal, demonstrates that the policization of the courts is a growing problem. He also makes several salient points about the so-called "right to privacy," supposedly created by various amendments between 1 and 14, and points out that the ninth and tenth amendments, by acknowledging that rights may exist outside of what is written in the Constitution, refer to rights that are...outside the Constitution. You can argue, if you believe it, that we have a right to privacy; what you can't argue is that we have a Consitutional Right to Privacy, because it's not in the Constitution. I'm pretty sure that the Framers could have placed a generalized "right to privacy" in its own separate amendment if they had really intended it to be there. Any claim that the Constitution supports such a right is a projection of one's personal beliefs onto an otherwise unambiguous document, and Bork's whole point is that judges should not decide cases based on their personal beliefs, they should rule on the text of the law. That said, at times Bork can be redundant, which makes for a somewhat longer book than is strictly necessary. Also, the discussion of his nomination battle, while fascinating in its own right, is really an entirely different book- it's more about answering his critics' charges (which he does by referring to his conclusions elsewhere in the book)than about an originalist understanding of the Constitution. It is interesting to read, though, and because it's sectionalized, readers can skip that part if they want to (though I wouldn't recommend doing so). All in all, a very interesting and thought-provoking book.
Rating:
Summary: Well-articulated, but occasionally long-winded
Review: Bork does a terrific job of making a logical argument in favor of interpreting the Consitutuon (and any other law) according to the original understanding of the legislators who ratified it. He cites numerous examples of judicial legislation, in which the originial intentions of various laws were ignored by Justices in favor of those Justices' opinions of what "ought to be," and by showing how this trend has become more common since the New Deal, demonstrates that the policization of the courts is a growing problem. He also makes several salient points about the so-called "right to privacy," supposedly created by various amendments between 1 and 14, and points out that the ninth and tenth amendments, by acknowledging that rights may exist outside of what is written in the Constitution, refer to rights that are...outside the Constitution. You can argue, if you believe it, that we have a right to privacy; what you can't argue is that we have a Consitutional Right to Privacy, because it's not in the Constitution. I'm pretty sure that the Framers could have placed a generalized "right to privacy" in its own separate amendment if they had really intended it to be there. Any claim that the Constitution supports such a right is a projection of one's personal beliefs onto an otherwise unambiguous document, and Bork's whole point is that judges should not decide cases based on their personal beliefs, they should rule on the text of the law. That said, at times Bork can be redundant, which makes for a somewhat longer book than is strictly necessary. Also, the discussion of his nomination battle, while fascinating in its own right, is really an entirely different book- it's more about answering his critics' charges (which he does by referring to his conclusions elsewhere in the book)than about an originalist understanding of the Constitution. It is interesting to read, though, and because it's sectionalized, readers can skip that part if they want to (though I wouldn't recommend doing so). All in all, a very interesting and thought-provoking book.
Rating:
Summary: Compelling
Review: For those of us that know that the Supreme Court is leaving its constitutional bounds, but do not know exactly why, this book is a must read. Judge Bork's brilliance shines through, forever condemning those that rejected him and his stances for political reasons.
Anyone that wishes to defend the constitution will find that this book is a powerful tool, and anyone that wishes to ignore the fundamental meanings of the constitution in headlong pursuit of political agendas will always have this book looking over his shoulder.
Rating:
Summary: Everyone in law school should read this book before con law
Review: How I wish I had read this book before I took con law. Not only would it have been good preparation, but it would also have given me the ammunition to argue positions that I felt where intuitively correct. Even at my school, the Constitution is presented to students loaded with assumptions the framers never had in mind. And although I think that, given the political reality of the world, our professors would be doing us a disservice if they didn't present it so, it is still hard to reconcile the discrepancies that surface while staying within the parameters of modern constitutional thought. Robert Bork masterfully and eloquently blows away all the false assumptions and everything begins to make sense. This book is truly a classic of American legal thought. It is the best argument for an original intent understanding of the Constitution that I have ever read. Bork also illustrates the politicization of our law in vivid detail by recounting his nomination for a seat on the Supreme Court and his defeat in the Senate. Still, though I understand the the slippery slope concomitant with looking beyond the four corners of the Constitution, Bork couldn't convince me that the Ninth Amendment is superfluous. Everyone in law school should read this; especially before taking con law. You'll thank me for the tip!
Rating:
Summary: A legal masterpiece
Review: If James Madison and Alexander Hamilton were around today, they would surely regard Robert Bork as their intellectual equal. The Federalist Papers, which they wrote, was the foundational philosophy of our Constitutional Republic. Bork's The Tempting of America should serve in a similar vein as a foundation, and point of departure, for all our efforts to understand and apply the Constitution today. Bork's central argument is that the only way for judges to interpret the Constitution is to be as faithful to the original intent of the founding fathers as possible in doing so. What are the alternatives to this approach? Why have so many judges found it necessary to stray from the Founders original meaning in incorporating newfangled "rights" that one couldn't get from simply reading the Constitution? Bork surveys the legal landscape for answers, and what he finds isn't pretty: law schools littered with professors outwardly cynical and disdainful about the men who wrote the Constitution, eager to selectively interpret any clause that suits their narrow political purposes in much the same way that literary critics invent meanings for works of literature that the authors themselves never even imagined. The originalist framework Bork proposes is ultimately neither liberal nor conservative. Though Bork sees most of the sloppy Constitutional interpretation today coming from the left, he reserves some of his strongest criticism for those on the right who would have the Constitution codify a fundamental right to property or enshrine capitalist procedures. Bork establishes once and for all that originalism IS NOT a vehicle for overly narrow legal interpreration that its critics imagine. Quite the opposite: originalism is an open framework in which the overwhelming majority of issues are left to democratically-elected legislatures where the Right and the Left have an equal chance of getting their way. Since the Constitution says nothing of issues like abortion and a right to privacy, Bork says these issues should revert from courts to legislatures -- and the legislatures would have unlimited authority (unfettered by the threat of Constitutional litigation) to legislate on these "rights" in the most liberal manner possible if they wanted to. In this way, originalism is apolitical. Besides offering refreshing and honest logic, Bork is also a joy to read because of the way he gets inside the cases he evaluates. A case in point is his evaluation of Brown v. Board of Education. Bork not only affirms or denies the arguments made at the time, but singlehandedly constructs a more compelling Constitutional rationale than the one unanimously agreed to by the Justices. Bork's treatise should be required reading for all who aim to understand Constitutional law. It is the perfect antidote to law professors who urge upon their students an essentially lawless approach to legal and Constitutional analysis.
Rating:
Summary: A primer on conservative jurisprudence
Review: It's become easy to throw stones at the idea that judges should stick to the original intent of the Constitution and not legislate from the bench. Because in recent years, judicial activism has leaned toward the political left, criticism of such judicial activism is often dismissed as a right-wing crusade to impose a conservative political viewpoint on the rest of the society. However, the temptation of reading new rights into the original text of the constitution becomes more thorny when, as Bork points out, that judicial activism hasn't always rested in favor of reading new individual liberties into the constitution. In fact, the Dred Scott decision in 1857 was an attempt to read into the constitution a right to own slaves. The only difference between that holding and with other attempts to create new rights from the bench (such as the right to "privacy" established in Griswold v. Connecticut in 1964) is the political viewpoints of the men in black robes. The method to come to each conclusion is the same -- replace the intent of the framers with the moral philosophy of the judge writing the decision. This is the central focus of the book. Bork is not unmindful of the problems with laws which are dumb and/or shocking to the conscience. In discussing the Supreme Court's decision in Skinner v. Oklahoma, in which the court stuck down a law mandating sterilization for recidivist offenders, Bork notes this dilemma [p.62]: "The problem in analyzing the case . . . is that the statute strikes the modern sensibility as savage. There is a natural tendency to want to strike it down. But the Constitution is a legal document, one different in texture from almost all others, but still a legal document and not an expression of a mood or a general injunction to be 'civilized'. To nullify the Oklahoma legislature's policy on the grounds that it shocks the judge is to embed in the Constitution the judge's notions of public policy, which . . . is entirely improper." The problem with result-oriented jurisprudence, as Bork makes his case throughout, is that it makes it more tempting to manipulate meanings and use varying levels of abstraction from the text to make the Constitution say anything the judge desires it to say. The second portion of the book addresses various theories of reading constitutional law, both expounding on his own, addressing critiques of his own, and critiquing other theories. While this sounds foreboding, it's not a treatise, but rather a representative sample. The third and final portion of the book might be the most prophetic, because it gives his side of what happened during his nomination and failed confirmation proceedings. While the answers to the false charges by the people Sen. Alan Simpson called at the time "bug-eyed zealots" might not seem to mean as much in its specific context, we would come to see such charges and underhanded politics repeated in future judicial and political nomination processes, from Clarence Thomas to John Ashcroft. For that purpose alone, as a blueprint for understanding how certain interest groups will operate to manufacture an unfounded groundswell against a conservative, the book is insightful.
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