Scorpions

The Battles and Triumphs of FDR's Great Supreme Court Justices

By: Noah Feldman

Narrated by: Cotter Smith

A group biography of the relationship between FDR and four of his Supreme Court justices, written by legal scholar Noah Feldman.

A tiny, ebullient Jew who started as America's leading liberal and ended as its most famous judicial conservative. A Klansman who became an absolutist advocate of free speech and civil rights. A backcountry lawyer who started off trying cases about cows and went on to conduct the most important international trial ever. A self-invented, tall-tale Westerner who narrowly missed the presidency but expanded individual freedom beyond what anyone before had dreamed.

Four more different men could hardly be imagined. Yet they had certain things in common. Each was a self-made man who came from humble beginnings on the edge of poverty. Each had driving ambition and a will to succeed. Each was, in his own way, a genius.

They began as close allies and friends of FDR, but the quest to shape a new Constitution led them to competition and sometimes outright warfare. Scorpians tells the story of these four great justices: their relationship with Roosevelt, with each other, and with the turbulent world of the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. It also serves as a history of the modern Constitution itself.

Great Book

I like everything about this book - how it is written and how it is narrated. I’m on my second trip through!

How FDR's created the modern Supreme Court

What did you like best about this story?

This is a fascinating journey through the history of 20th century American jurisprudence. Listeners will learn how FDR met Felix Frankfurter, Hugo Black, Robert Jackson and William O. Douglas in the course of his political career. Those four men set the Court on a path that changed the law -- before they even became justices. Great history lessons here. Very approachable; law degree not required.

Informative and entertaining

A very informative book, with a very good narrator. I learned much about the four Justices in the book and it left me wanting to learn more about them and the time period. The behind the scenes politics of the Supreme Court then and the Justices' interactions with FDR and the New Deal were unique in history.

Rough start, but strong overall

If you're a con law nerd, this is for you.

The story of how America's longest-serving president changed the Supreme Court, the country and the world with his appointments. This provides great context for understanding the rise of liberalism, judicial activism and, conversely, judicial restraint on the Supreme Court.

It's easy to forget that Justices are actual people, who evolve. But this book injects the humanity of these men, and their contemporaries, to provide a broader context that is often missing when one simply studies the opinions of the Court, as some continuous institution.

Made the Justices human

This was a fascinating look behind the scenes of the Supreme Court during a time when four of the greatest Justices who ever served - Black, Douglas, Frankfurter, and Jackson - were developing their Constitutional theories. The book did an excellent job of explaining and illustrating the similarities and differences between those theories. It did so by focusing on both the professional and the personal conflicts amongst the Justices. It is genuinely shocking how much drama they had with one another, but it makes for a helluva read. I was listening to another book on the Court covering the same time period and wound up abandoning that one because this one had the same level of substance on the major cases but with the bonus of a compelling human story.