Publishers Weekly
10/07/2019
George Washington University law professor Rosen (William Howard Taft) shines a flattering light on Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in this discerning work. In a series of conversations held between 2010 and 2019, which Rosen has condensed and rearranged by theme, Ginsburg discusses the gender discrimination cases she argued before the Supreme Court as a volunteer ACLU lawyer in the 1970s; her appointment to the D.C. circuit court in 1980; and her recovery from three broken ribs and lung cancer surgery during the Supreme Court’s 2018–2019 term. Ginsburg rearticulates her previous criticisms of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision (she believes it should have been restricted to the Texas law in question, and based on equal protection rather than privacy rights), but remains “skeptically hopeful” it will not be overturned. Ginsburg also speaks to the legal aspects of the #MeToo movement (“you need to build fairness into the system”) and offers her assessment of the court’s newest members, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh (they’re both “very congenial”). Rosen’s helpful notes and straightforward interview style allow Ginsburg’s exceptional legal mind to take center stage. The justice’s many admirers, as well as readers interested in constitutional law, will find this book to be full of valuable insights. (Nov.)
From the Publisher
"Will surely entice the many who can’t get enough of our country’s most meme-able jurist. . . . Readers who come for RBG’s Greatest Hits will end up getting something richer: At its best, Conversations makes you feel like a student in the world’s coolest law school seminar." —The Washington Post
“Imagine having a cup of coffee with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and chatting about law, the Supreme Court, marriage, family, music, wins and losses. If that seems unlikely to happen, Jeffrey Rosen’s Conversations with RBG is the best possible substitute.” —Linda Greenhouse, Pulitzer Prize-winning former Supreme Court correspondent of The New York Times and author of Becoming Justice Blackmun
“Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s vantage on American law and politics is without equal. This collection of interviews, conducted over decades, covers her distinguished career as a lawyer, judge, and Supreme Court justice, and gets to the very heart of her understanding of the Constitution, and what’s at stake in its interpretation.” —Jill Lepore, author of These Truths: A History of the United States
“Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a pivotal figure in American history—a pathbreaking litigator and Supreme Court justice. Conversations with RBG is a fascinating look at the person behind the cases and opinions. Justice Ginsburg’s humor, deep intellect, and warmth shine through in this captivating book.” —Annette Gordon-Reed, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hemingses of Monticello and Charles Warren Professor of American Legal History, Harvard Law School
"In this discerning work . . . Rosen's helpful notes and straightforward interview style allow Ginsburg's exceptional legal mind to take center stage. The justice's many admirers, as well as readers interested in constitutional law, will find this book to be full of valuable insights." —Publishers Weekly
"With Conversations With RBG Rosen has given us a thoughtful, readable and powerfully illustrative reminder of how fortunate the nation is to continue to have Justice Ginsburg as a teacher." —Judge M. Margaret McKeown, Law360.com
“To anyone who believes Supreme Court justices speak only in pronouncements handed down like chiseled tablets from Mount Sinai, Jeffrey Rosen’s Conversations with RBG will come as a revelation. . . . Ginsburg, ever the optimist, believes we’re ‘constantly forming a more perfect Union, which is what the Founders intended.’ Conversations with RBG is an enlightening look at her vital contribution to that process.” —BookPage
