Rating: 
Summary: Maybe if my attention span was better...
Review: ...I'd rate this book a little higher. I am almost always in agreement with Justice Scalia. I enjoyed "his" portion of the book, but fell asleep as the other writers volleyed back. This book was a little too burdensome for me, and likely so for anyone other than an L3 or above. Bork's book, The Tempting Of America, was much more readable and enjoyable. See also Johnnie Cochran, A Lawyer's Life.I like a good debate just as anyone else does, but this book descends into the realm of "pinhead intellectualism." I guess that's necessary in the nuts-and-bolts of appellate law, but that leaves a very small audience of satisfied book buyers. While it's main point - the difference between being a "textualist" versus a "strict constitutionalist" is well taken, for most of us this book is a tough read. If you're Harvard Law (or Hofstra), go ahead.
Rating:
Summary: Maybe if my attention span was better...
Review: ...I'd rate this book a little higher. I am almost always in agreement with Justice Scalia. I enjoyed "his" portion of the book, but fell asleep as the other writers volleyed back. This book was a little too burdensome for me, and likely so for anyone other than an L3 or above. Bork's book, The Tempting Of America, was much more readable and enjoyable. See also Johnnie Cochran, A Lawyer's Life. I like a good debate just as anyone else does, but this book descends into the realm of "pinhead intellectualism." I guess that's necessary in the nuts-and-bolts of appellate law, but that leaves a very small audience of satisfied book buyers. While it's main point - the difference between being a "textualist" versus a "strict constitutionalist" is well taken, for most of us this book is a tough read. If you're Harvard Law (or Hofstra), go ahead.
Rating:
Summary: Maybe if my attention span was better...
Review: ...I'd rate this book a little higher. I am almost always in agreement with Justice Scalia. I enjoyed "his" portion of the book, but fell asleep as the other writers volleyed back. This book was a little too burdensome for me, and likely so for anyone other than an L3 or above. Bork's book, The Tempting Of America, was much more readable and enjoyable. See also Johnnie Cochran, A Lawyer's Life. I like a good debate just as anyone else does, but this book descends into the realm of "pinhead intellectualism." I guess that's necessary in the nuts-and-bolts of appellate law, but that leaves a very small audience of satisfied book buyers. While it's main point - the difference between being a "textualist" versus a "strict constitutionalist" is well taken, for most of us this book is a tough read. If you're Harvard Law (or Hofstra), go ahead.
Rating: 
Summary: le bete noir
Review: A verbose, self-righteous justification of Scalia's gun-lust-driven obsession with a police state, the elimination of individual rights, protection of the corporate prerogrative to pollute, and the eventual takeover of our government by right-wing religious fanatics. This is a sleight-of-hand job worthy of a clumsy circus magician. He points to the law with one hand while sweeping it out from under us with the other. Read it and weep.
Rating: 
Summary: Intelligent discussion beats words without meaning
Review: Adroitly Justice Scalia shows how judicial interpretation follows no known set of principles or constraints. Without a useful set of rules, the judicial branch has usurped the powers delegated to the legislative and executive branches. Instead, the judicial branch continues its common law tradition of making law for the King. Unfortunately, this practice pre-dates democratic government. The term "interpretation" now includes the raw law making and law setting-aside power that has ripped the fundamental freedom of self governance. Have you ever wondered, when you've read a recent Supreme Court ruling about the latest, newly-unconstitutional law, that the attendant ruling makes no reference to any specific part of the Constitution? Instead, Justices refer to their previously-declared law on that or even another subject. In effect, courts have "interpreted" new law, then used that interpretation or some arbitrary re-interpretation to make whatever decision they think is best. This has led to the bold ignoring of the written law in favor of what judges (and their attendant activists) believe "should" be the law. In this 50-page main article, Scalia lances a splinter in the eye of the "living Constitution" people. Don't get it, yet? Well, Scalia will be happy to jam a 2x4 piece of lumber in that same eye - his footnoting is right on point. In contrast, the critiques by famous (and liberal) Harvard law professors and other attendants pale in comparison. I suspect that is why the good Justice agreed to write the book in this manner. The Harvard types furnish only silly words-without-meaning to support their claims of a "living Constitution". The contrast is spectacular and enlightening.
Rating:
Summary: Intelligent discussion beats words without meaning
Review: Adroitly Justice Scalia shows how judicial interpretation follows no known set of principles or constraints. Without a useful set of rules, the judicial branch has usurped the powers delegated to the legislative and executive branches. Instead, the judicial branch continues its common law tradition of making law for the King. Unfortunately, this practice pre-dates democratic government. The term "interpretation" now includes the raw law making and law setting-aside power that has ripped the fundamental freedom of self governance. Have you ever wondered, when you've read a recent Supreme Court ruling about the latest, newly-unconstitutional law, that the attendant ruling makes no reference to any specific part of the Constitution? Instead, Justices refer to their previously-declared law on that or even another subject. In effect, courts have "interpreted" new law, then used that interpretation or some arbitrary re-interpretation to make whatever decision they think is best. This has led to the bold ignoring of the written law in favor of what judges (and their attendant activists) believe "should" be the law. In this 50-page main article, Scalia lances a splinter in the eye of the "living Constitution" people. Don't get it, yet? Well, Scalia will be happy to jam a 2x4 piece of lumber in that same eye - his footnoting is right on point. In contrast, the critiques by famous (and liberal) Harvard law professors and other attendants pale in comparison. I suspect that is why the good Justice agreed to write the book in this manner. The Harvard types furnish only silly words-without-meaning to support their claims of a "living Constitution". The contrast is spectacular and enlightening.
Rating:
Summary: great
Review: Although I disagree with the Justice, I found him easier to understand than his critics. I also enjoyed having different legal theories of interpretation defined. I still believe that judicial activism protects the rights of the individual better than any other method. I would rather have my rights cultivated than retarded by the government and the international (so called US) corporation.
Rating:
Summary: A good roundtable, but not that impressive
Review: An interesting book in that you hear a variety of approaches on statutory interpretation. However, most of their perspectives are too long-winded and really could be reduced to a couple pages. In the end, basically the people just have to agree to disagree, since they are starting with different premises and assumptions. The historian Gordon Wood's article is probably the most interesting. Overall, although the book formulates the debate well and makes you think, it is too repetitive.
Rating: 
Summary: A fine critique of modern legal philsophy in the US.
Review: Antonin Scalia is blessed with a powerful intellect and a persuasive manner of expression. It's about time that a member of the US Supreme Court explained in terms intelligible to the average "newspaper reader" just what is going on in federal appeals courts. If not all of Justice Scalia's recommendations are correct, he certainly, at long last, has been able to ask the right questions. Proponents of judicial activism (and Scalia graciously shares space with two of the most famous, Tribe & Dworkin) will be hard-pressed to keep up the pretense that federal courts today are much more than arenas for elite social engineers to rework society in their own image and likeness. A fine study in modern legal philosophy, I recommend this work with few reservations. My complete review of Justice Scalia's book can be found in "National Catholic Register" 26 Oct. - 1 Nov. 1997, p. 6. I have seen the review posted on the Web as well.
Rating:
Summary: A tough read
Review: Antonin Scalia might be best described as a conservative American. Conservatism often means not taking the "far-out-there" approach to life.
Although his section of the book is rather short, it is a bit difficult to follow for those of us who are not lawyers. Nevertheless, it is an excellent view into his thinking process. It details the reasons for not siding with contemporary liberal thinking, believing that the U.S. Constitution should be interpreted literally (in most cases).
I read the book a few pages at a time, absorbed what I read, and read more the next day. Frequently, during the responses to his writings by other prominent lawyers, I found myself going back and re-reading parts of his writings again. To complete the book and understand it I probably read the entire book several times - back and forth between the writers.
Whatever your political leanings, it is an insight into why one Supreme Court Justice votes the way he does.
I wish all the Justices would write a similar book so we could understand their viewpoints.
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