Scalia: Supreme Court Years, 1986 to 2001

A Powerful Voice Brings Change to the Supreme Court

In this second installment of James Rosen’s masterful biography--hailed as ＂monumental,＂ ＂ground-breaking,＂ and ＂definitive＂--Antonin Scalia brings his intellectual genius, literary gifts, and wit to the staid corridors of the Supreme Court.

Championing originalism--the idea that the Constitution and statutes should be interpreted according to the original meaning these texts carried when they were enacted, without being expanded or twisted by activist judges--Scalia changed forever the way the law is crafted in Congress, argued before the bench, and adjudicated by our courts. The impact on American society was revolutionary.

Drawing on his own lunches and correspondence with Scalia, interviews with other justices and judges, family members, priests, poker buddies, and hunting companions, as well as newly unsealed letters, memoranda, and draft opinions, Rosen makes Scalia, and the law, come alive.

We are in the room as the firebrand justice charms and confronts the towering figures of American law: William Rehnquist and Sandra Day O’Connor, Thurgood Marshall and Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Clarence Thomas. ＂I attack ideas, not people,＂ Scalia said--but several colleagues at the Marble Temple, particularly those committed to a ＂Living Constitution,＂ bristled at the sting of his opinions.

Supreme Court Years, 1986-2001 covers the first half of Scalia’s Court tenure, climaxing in the national drama of Bush v. Gore, and Scalia the man: devout Catholic, loving husband, stern father, world traveler, hot-tempered subject of news reporting.

It’s a ride like no other.

One of America’s leading reporters, James Rosen is chief Washington correspondent at Newsmax, where his sharp questioning of Presidents Biden and Trump made global headlines. Previously he covered the White House and State Department for Fox News for nearly two decades.

In the Obama era, Rosen’s exclusive reporting led the FBI to place him and his family under illegal surveillance--the disclosure of which made national news, triggering investigations and reforms.

Rosen’s articles have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, POLITICO, The Atlantic, and National Review, among other periodicals.

Previous books include The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of Watergate; Cheney One on One; A Torch Kept Lit: Great Lives of the Twentieth Century, a bestselling anthology of the writing of William F. Buckley, Jr. that Rosen edited; and Scalia: Rise to Greatness, 1936-1986.

Rosen is married with two sons.