This book is typical of contemporary judicial biography: the author has selected her left judge, then said "ooh" and "ah" over virtually everything he ever did. Apparently, she made friends with his widow in the process. Truly pitiful.

Laura Kalman's biography of Abe Fortas is a fascinating look at the life of one of this country's most controversial judicial figures. Fortas, whose nomination as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was blocked by LBJ's political opponents, emerges from the book as a sympathetic figure, a wise counselor and judge, and, fundamentally, human. Kalman has done her homework, meticulously researching the life and times of Fortas to create what should stand as the definitive work on his life for some time to come.

I do believe the first "reviewer" is a right-wing hack who has never read the book, but just wants to trash it. That review should be deleted.

Justice Fortas is one of the most abused figures in American jurisprudence. Ms. Kalman, using various facts not cited by the first "reviewer" (because the first "reviewer" didn't know them, because he/she hadn't read the book he/she was dissing), particularly Fortas' stellar work in the field of civil rights and for the poor of all races (the Gideon case being a shining example), shows that Justice Fortas was a much better judge, a much better legal scholar, and a much better human being, than the persons that Nixon, Reagan and Bush nominated for the court - many of whom, such as the infamous Judge Carswell, later ended their lives in disgrace utterly eclipsing the politically-engineered humiliation of Justice Fortas.

An engrossing read.