Takeover

How a Conservative Student Club Captured the Supreme Court

By: Noah Feldman, Lidia Jean Kott

Narrated by: Noah Feldman

Length: 2 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

Six of the nine sitting justices of the Supreme Court are current or former members of The Federalist Society - a private, conservative legal organization which has grown to dominate modern American jurisprudence.

Takeover tells the story of how The Federalist Society started as a student club and grew to become the most influential legal organization in US history. Over the last three decades, they managed to shape judicial policy and secure numerous seats for its members on courts of appeals and the Supreme Court. Now at the height of its prominence, the organization faces new challenges and internal divisions threaten to splinter the group as its members debate the core founding principles of the Federalist Society. Author and narrator Noah Feldman, a constitutional law professor at Harvard, host of the Deep Background podcast, and author of several books including The Arab Winter and The Three Lives of James Madison, provides special insight and access into this organization. He takes listeners into the offices and chambers of the people who know the Federalist Society best and illuminates how the group came to power, the challenges it faces, and its future which should matter to everyone.

©2021 Pushkin Industries (P)2021 Pushkin Industries

Well worth your while

This is a skillfully produced and consistently interesting account of how conservatives transformed the American judiciary. The interviews added outstanding texture and Feldman’s analysis was valuable throughout. While Feldman doesn’t hide his disagreement with FedSoc’s principles and aims, he’s admirably careful to give FedSoc a proper hearing. I recommend pairing this with Feldman’s February 2021 Deep Background interview with FedSoc CEO Eugene Meyer,

Outstanding

Feldman takes a complex piece of history and judiciary politics and makes it accessible and gripping without being reductive. Excellent piece of writing.

the brilliant Noah Feldman!

a must listen for all centrists, and progressives! really any and all americans who should care about how we can be empowered, or disenfranchised by the highest court in the land.

A must to read for every American!

At a selling price of under $8, you will get 3-times the worth of your money. a quick lesson explaining "THE SUPREME COURT OF UNITED STATES".

A concise history

This was such a good listen/read! Great summaries of the Federalist Society and the ACA, the Federalist Society and the 2016 election of Donald Trump, and many other events shaping the current political and judicial context. It deserves a re-listen.

Noah Feldman has an engaging style, nice use of music in the production. Lots of original, raw audio from essential events and interviews. I hope others adopt this style of audiobook.

full of false equivalencies, a terrible book!

Full of false equivalencies, this is terrible book! Shame on the author, who comes across as an unprincipled, suck up!

Could be titled "Federalist Society Sucks"

Biased against the Federalist Society with a good deal of hope for the American Constitutional Whatever. But then, it's Noah Feldman, so what do you expect?!

Credit where credit is due, Noah spends a good deal of time explaining the background of the Federalist Society and includes plenty of interviews from folks who have been there from the beginning. It falls apart when he calls FedSoc members elitists and implies that the influence of their network on judicial appointments is somehow corrupt or inappropriate, all the while getting Russ Feingold to admit he'd love to give President Biden a list of names! This book seems written for a clueless audience wanting to learn more about that Federalist group they heard of on the TV, but it is more likely to be consumed by Progressives looking for affirmation of their fear of and disdain for the Federalist Society in particular and conservatives in general.