From the Publisher
For anyone interested in the court, women’s history or both, the story of Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, their separate routes to the Supreme Court and what they accomplished during the more than 12 years they spent together is irresistible.” — New York Times Book Review
“Linda Hirshman’s joint biography of the first and second woman to serve on the nation’s highest court is a gossipy, funny, sometimes infuriating and moving tale of two women so similar and yet so different.” — NPR
“Vital...Part of what makes Hirshman such a likable writer — in addition to her wit and ability to explain the law succinctly without dumbing it down — is her optimism.” — Washington Post
“Fast-paced and sure-footed...persuasive...Hirshman’s ability to write clearly about the law without oversimplifying enables her to explain how O’Connor played defense and Ginsburg offense.” — Huffington Post
“A lovely, thoughtful, and fascinating chronicle of [O’Connor and Ginzburg’s] careers and lives that doubles as a concise history of the fight for equality for women.” — SCOTUS blog
“Carefully researched and enjoyably written” — Wall Street Journal
For anyone interested in the court, women’s history or both, the story of Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, their separate routes to the Supreme Court and what they accomplished during the more than 12 years they spent together is irresistible. — Linda Greenhouse, New York Times Book Review
“Linda Hirshman’s joint biography of Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg is fascinating and informative but is also joyful — a stirring reminder of how these two pioneers for women’s rights have advanced the cause in their singular but complementary ways.” — Jeffrey Toobin, author of The Oath and The Nine
“A tale of two unfaltering women with steel-trap minds, their unlikely rapport, and the legal landscape they battle to reshape. Smart, startling, and profoundly moving.” — Stacy Schiff, author of Cleopatra: A Life
“Linda Hirshman has written a thorough, accurate, and most readable account of the careers of the two first women to serve as Justices of the Supreme Court. Laymen as well as lawyers will learn a great deal, not only about these two special people, but about today’s Court as well.” — Justice John Paul Stevens
“A riveting page-turner that will make you laugh, cry, and seethe with frustration at how long and hard the road to women’s equality has been. Above all, it will inspire and delight. A prodigious achievement and an important contribution to the history of our times.” — Leslie Bennetts, author of The Feminine Mistake
“This sharply-drawn double portrait of the first and second women on the U.S. Supreme Court and the way their lives and legal philosophies complement and contrast with each other is riveting. Linda Hirshman has the unique ability to think like a law professor and write like a journalist.” — Lynn Hecht Schafran, National Judicial Education Program, Legal Momentum
New York Times Book Review
The story of Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, their separate routes to the Supreme Court, and what they accomplished during the more than twelve years they spent together is irresistible.”
Wall Street Journal
Carefully researched and enjoyably written.”
Publishers Weekly
Hirshman’s conversational style and deep analysis of several precedent-setting constitutional cases should appeal to both casual and professional readers.”
Washington Post
Vital…Part of what makes Hirshman such a likable writer—in addition to her wit and ability to explain the law succinctly without dumbing it down—is her optimism.”
Kirkus Reviews
An intelligent, evenhanded look at a changing society and its legal foundations.”
Huffington Post
Hirshman’s ability to write clearly about the law without oversimplifying enables her to explain how O’Connor played defense and Ginsburg offense.”
AudioFile
[A] fascinating audiobook…Narrator Andrea Gallo’s engaging, open voice has a slight rasp but is eminently compelling and inviting. While she doesn’t have an elastic range, she does adjust her tone to capture the momentous nature of the decisions the Court made during the shared tenure of these two judicial leaders.”
Library Journal (starred review)
An illuminating analysis…This superb book unpacks the remarkable achievements of the first two female Supreme Court justices.”
Booklist (starred review)
An absorbing history of the struggle for women’s rights in the legal arena and the two extraordinary women who helped to advance those rights.”
Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Cleopatra Stacy Schiff
A tale of two unfaltering women with steel-trap minds…Smart, startling, and profoundly moving.”
NPR
A gossipy, funny, sometimes infuriating, and moving tale of two women so similar and yet so different.”
author of The Feminine Mistake Leslie Bennetts
A prodigious achievement and an important contribution to the history of our times.”
CNN legal analyst and author of The Oath Jeffrey Toobin
Linda Hirshman’s joint biography of Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg is fascinating and informative but is also joyful—a stirring reminder of how these two pioneers for women’s rights have advanced the cause in their singular but complementary ways.”
Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens
A thorough, accurate, and most readable account of the careers of the two first women to serve as Justices of the Supreme Court.”
Jeffrey Toobin
Linda Hirshman’s joint biography of Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg is fascinating and informative but is also joyful — a stirring reminder of how these two pioneers for women’s rights have advanced the cause in their singular but complementary ways.
Linda Greenhouse
For anyone interested in the court, women’s history or both, the story of Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, their separate routes to the Supreme Court and what they accomplished during the more than 12 years they spent together is irresistible.
Stacy Schiff
A tale of two unfaltering women with steel-trap minds, their unlikely rapport, and the legal landscape they battle to reshape. Smart, startling, and profoundly moving.
Justice John Paul Stevens
Linda Hirshman has written a thorough, accurate, and most readable account of the careers of the two first women to serve as Justices of the Supreme Court. Laymen as well as lawyers will learn a great deal, not only about these two special people, but about today’s Court as well.
SCOTUS blog
A lovely, thoughtful, and fascinating chronicle of [O’Connor and Ginzburg’s] careers and lives that doubles as a concise history of the fight for equality for women.
Lynn Hecht Schafran
This sharply-drawn double portrait of the first and second women on the U.S. Supreme Court and the way their lives and legal philosophies complement and contrast with each other is riveting. Linda Hirshman has the unique ability to think like a law professor and write like a journalist.
Leslie Bennetts
A riveting page-turner that will make you laugh, cry, and seethe with frustration at how long and hard the road to women’s equality has been. Above all, it will inspire and delight. A prodigious achievement and an important contribution to the history of our times.
Washington Post
Vital...Part of what makes Hirshman such a likable writer — in addition to her wit and ability to explain the law succinctly without dumbing it down — is her optimism.
Wall Street Journal
Carefully researched and enjoyably written
O: the Oprah Magazine
A smart, riveting read.
the Oprah Magazine O
A smart, riveting read.
Kirkus Reviews
2015-07-08
A dual biography of the pioneering jurists whose arrival on the Supreme Court both commemorated and invigorated the movement toward gender equality.Hirshman (Victory: The Triumphant Gay Revolution, 2012, etc.), an attorney who has argued before the Supreme Court, counts herself among the countless beneficiaries of that trend, having in just a few short years gone from an outlier as a woman in the world of law to "a pretty normal player." It would be hard to find two people less alike than Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the one a conservative who grew up on a New Mexico ranch and entered politics with the Goldwater wing of the Republican Party, the other a liberal Democrat from Brooklyn who had been a feminist activist for years before attaining her seat at the bench. Yet both were also accomplished lawyers who broke into the profession "when there was not even a whisper of a women's legal movement," setting precedents that encouraged other women to follow. Hirshman notes what might seem to be detriments, from Ginsburg's occasional brittleness and possible legal missteps, such as suggesting that abortion should have been argued as a matter of women's equality in 1973—the author's reasoning on that count is subtle but generally convincing—to O'Connor's loyalty to William Rehnquist, who, after all, was an enemy of precisely the same attainments of civil rights for which O'Connor was in the vanguard. Yet both O'Connor and Ginsburg "recognized that women could use the law to pry open realms of life foreclosed to them by historical practices of exclusion," and they did just that. Hirshman goes on to examine not just their role in reforming the culture of the Supreme Court and the tenor of some aspects of the law, but also their work on specific issues such as affirmative action and sex discrimination. An intelligent, evenhanded look at a changing society and its legal foundations.
