The book begins with the presentation of an interesting thesis: courts should act minimally when deciding cases. The author aptly examines this proposition of minimalism, breaking it into component dimensions of deep vs. shallow and broad vs. narrow. Minimalism is attractive because it allows for democratic deliberation, is an acknowledgement of the limited ability of the courts, both to predict the future and to acquire currently dispersed information, and because it promotes agreement. Sunstein not only asserts minimalism as a normative ideal, but also as a description of the current Supreme Court.

The second section is dedicated to a series of case studies, designed at once to show that the Supreme Court has been acting minimally, and furthermore, that it was correct for it to act in that fashion. However, Sunstein, having failed to crystallize minimalism into any thing concrete enough to be subject to falsification, simply rhapsodizes on the lack of court's information, and the many factual possibilites that would prove wide rulings unattractive.

Indeed, there is a fundamental ambiguity here: the author insists that minimalism is a relativist concept, but simultaneously, that it can be absolute as well (the latter claim is not explicitly stated, but the implication is clear enough--without an absolute standard of minimalism, Sunstein could not describe the Rehnquist Court as minimalist). The rub of it is if the former contention is true, then Sunstein's claim about the Rehnquist Court is fatally uninteresting. If the latter is true, then it depends on a definition of minimalism Sunsten never offers, and is at any rate, most likely false.

The third section of a book is an attack on the apostles of the opposition: width (Antonin Scalia) and depth (Ronald Dworkin). Sunstein's attack on Scalia's textualism is a fierce representation of the classic rule to act utilitarianism collapse, coupled with a critique of originalism. Dworkin's depth is respectfully dismissed as--at times--inconvenient. Attack as he does, however, he has offered nothing in its stead. His own philosophy is so run through with caveats that it is unclear what its enactment would look like, nor whether it is as attractive as he claims.

Indeed minimalism as a rule, quite appropriately, simply collapses to act minimalism, which is simple pragmatism, which Sunstein only vaguely defends. True enough, judges should exercise the best of judgment, but most people already had a feeling that that was the case before "One Case at a Time."

Make no mistake, Professor Sunstein's analysis of cases is lively and insightful, and his statements are often profound. But every insightful point is paired with a correspondingly strong counterpoint, and after 200 and some pages one finds every statement precisely cancelled out, leaving the reader with no real idea of what Sunstein is advocating, and the underlying suspicion that he's too timid to resolutely defend his position, whatever it may be.

Reading the book is like eating Chinese food.

It is a common piece of political rhetoric that courts run this country; you see this most commonly from the right. Sunstein presents an alternative that actually examines how the Supreme Court operates across broad categories. Sunstein develops the theory of minimalism. Under this theory, Sunstein argues that courts should proceed cautiously in deciding cases that involve complex and difficult areas of constitutional law. Courts have institutional limitations that make it difficult for them to provide hard rules that will decide every case in the future. One recurring example is Roe v. Wade where the Court attempted to lay out a broad rule. The experience with this broad rule demonstrated that the Court's attempt was a bad idea in that it had insufficient knowledge to adequately develop rules to deal with all contingencies. That is why the Court itself eventually abandoned Roe's broad rule in Casey. While Sunstein warns against broad and far-reaching rules, he does not say that all such rules are invalid. Instead he argues that such rules should be limited for those few cases and areas that a consensus exists and the risk of error is minimal; an example of which is Brown where the Court had a series of decisions lending support to its ultimate resolution of segregation. After describing minimalism, Sunstein analyzes the Court's recent decisions regarding assisted suicide, affirmative action, sex and sexual orientation, and the first amendment dealing with cable and internet issues. In each of these areas the Court has proceeded in a minimalist fashion, which Sunstein describes and defends.

Contrary to another reviewer's assertion, Sunstein does not use his theory to justify "liberal" values while attacking "conservative" justices. In fact he notes that Rehnquist, hardly a liberal, often operates in a minimalist fashion. His critique of Scalia has nothing to do with conservatism and is instead aimed at the fact that Scalia is the foremost maximalist. He argues for broad rules meant to provide certainty. Sunstein analyzes Scalia's constitutional theory solely in terms of the limitation of maximalism, and does not in any way attack Scalia for his conservatism.

The best thing about minimalism is that it seeks to allow democratic deliberation to assist in constitutional development. In deciding cases in a minimalist fashion, the Court allows democratic assemblies to work out new approaches to difficult areas. In fact, one benefit of federalism has long been understood to be promoting experimentation. Democratic assemblies have the fact gathering ability and deliberative processes that can best develop rules to deal with future problems.

Review titled "Sad...Brilliant Mind" is misguided and his criticism is misplaced. His erudiction is impressive (lots of foreign, erudite words to be sure) but his analysis confuses several critical positions. Read "One Case at a Time" and you will gain a better idea of how fundamentally flawed our democratic process actually is and the role of the judiciary as a buffer against a tyranny by the majority. To understand the Supreme Court since 1954, one must see the historical circumstances of that era.

Liberalism eats its intellectuals, cannibalizing their principles for the sake of political expediency.

Professor Sunstein is a case in point. Last year, to defend President Clinton against impeachment, he argued that a President can't be impeached for any crime not related to his office. When pressed, he allowed that it would be a borderline case if the President murdered someone, but no lesser crime would merit impeachment. Professor Sunstein is not a stupid man, but this is a stupid argument. Since, like most legal experts, Mr. Sunstein also believes that a President cannot be prosecuted, Mr. Sunstein is arguing that if a President habitually raped women or blew up abortion clinics and bragged about his exploits in his State of the Union Address, the country would be powerless to take any action against him. I doubt that a man of Mr. Sunstein's intelligence believed that even as he spoke it, but nevertheless, he lent his prestige to a shabby argument for the political demands of the moment.

There is something of the same thing going on in this book. This time, there is nothing objectionable in his thesis. Courts should not strip issues away from the democratic process. Indeed, if it weren't for Roe v. Wade (which Sunstein properly condemns), state legislatures would have legalized abortion anyway, but the pro-life forces would not be picketing clinics, let alone blowing them up. Vox populi, vox dei has a powerful ability to make people to accept what they oppose. Courts lack that power.

Where Sunstein bows to political pressure is in his choice of examples of judicial overreach. For every example of Warren Court "maximalism" which he rightly condemns, he throws in a right-wing example, Justices Scalia and Thomas being particular targets. But he really is comparing apples and oranges. Justice Scalia's position on punitive damages, for instance, which has a long tradition in America despite current abuses, is just not on a par with the Warren Court's Baker v. Carr, which overturned 200 years of electoral practice (and, if the court had been logically consistent, would have overturned the method of electing U.S. Senators, thus making the Constitution unconstitutional). Yet Sunstein equates the two. If conservative judges were really the judicial activists Sunstein pretends them to be, they would be arguing that the fetus is a human being protected by the Constitution. They do not do that, arguing at their most extreme that it is a matter for the legislatures to decide.

Because liberalism is aimless at the moment, it behooves liberals to applaud the narrow focus of the Court. It also behooves them to use a tu quoque argument to attack the opposition. Sunstein fills the bill.

This book is a highly original and highly principled work. Unfortunately, the parts that are original are not principled and the parts that principled are not original.

This is an essential text for anyone interested in legal reasoning and legal process. I would go so far as to say it will be on the same bookshelf as Oliver Wendall Holmes and other great jurisprudential commentators. It should also be required reading for every law student, and their professors as well. Sunstein, a law professor at the University of Chicago Law School, gives clear, diagramatic analyses of the principles upon which the Supreme Court (and other courts and judges) base their decisions.

That having been said, this is neither a quick nor superficial read. It assumes the reader's familiarity with legal process and decisionmaking, and of the salient issues before the courts. Nevertheless, the overall result is deeply satisfying as a method of analysis. Anyone interested in law should buy the book, and read it, not once but several times.