Rosen's Scalia Review: How a Queens Kid Became a Justice

By Yossi Schmidt, Founder and Editor-in-Chief, The Digital Free Press

RATING: 8.7/10 — B+

Disclosure: James Rosen had his publisher send me a copy of this book for review. That's all it was. It didn't buy a better grade, and every opinion here is my own.

Antonin Scalia didn't become one of the most influential Supreme Court justices in American history overnight.

Love his judicial philosophy or can't stand it, pretending the man wasn't brilliant would be ridiculous.

James Rosen's Scalia: Rise to Greatness, 1936–1986 takes us back before the Supreme Court. Before the famous dissents. Before Scalia became a household name in America's constitutional fights.

And there's a lot more to this story than a conservative judge making his way to Washington.

Rosen follows Scalia from his birth in Trenton, New Jersey, and his boyhood in Queens, through school, the classroom, government service and the federal appeals court in Washington, all the way to his unanimous Senate confirmation to the Supreme Court in 1986. He became the first Italian American to sit on the Court.

What makes this biography stand out is the reporting behind it.

Rosen didn't grab a few famous Scalia quotes, toss in some constitutional arguments and call it a book. This project was decades in the making. He interviewed Scalia's family, classmates, students, colleagues, priests, poker buddies and hunting companions. He dug up writing from every stage of Scalia's career that most of us have never seen, including private Supreme Court emails.

That's journalism. And I respect it.

One of the best parts of the book is Scalia's life before he ever put on a robe.

His Catholic upbringing. His education. His years in academia. His work in the Nixon and Ford administrations, where, according to Rosen, Scalia played a central role in reforming the U.S. intelligence community. All of it shaped the legal thinker Americans would later come to know.

Scalia believed judges are supposed to interpret the law, not rewrite it to get the political or social outcome they want. His commitment to originalism, the idea that the Constitution should be read according to its original public meaning, became one of his defining contributions to American law.

You don't have to agree with that philosophy to recognize how much it mattered.

And that's important.

Too many people today judge Supreme Court justices by one thing: whether they like the outcome.

Conservatives cheer when a conservative justice rules their way. Liberals cheer when a liberal justice rules theirs. And when the ruling goes the other way, suddenly the whole judiciary is corrupt.

That's not how accountability works.

A justice answers to the Constitution and the law. Not to a political party, and not to the people who helped put him on the bench.

Rosen gives readers the background they need to understand where Scalia's convictions came from. That's a real service.

Now, here's my one real criticism.

Rosen clearly admires Scalia. He also knew him personally. He corresponded with him, shared meals with him and even rode as a nervous passenger in the justice's famously fast BMW.

There's nothing wrong with that. A biographer is allowed to respect his subject, and that closeness gives the book a warmth and access most biographies never get.

But admiration and scrutiny are two different things.

At times, the book gets protective. Rosen spends a lot of time answering Scalia's critics, and some of the detailed political and legal disputes pull focus from the bigger story.

I don't need a biographer to convince me that every criticism of his subject is unfair. I need him to lay out the evidence and let me decide.

That's the standard I'd apply to a biography of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Clarence Thomas or any other justice.

No special treatment.

The other thing to know going in is the book's scope.

This volume ends in 1986, just as Scalia joins the Supreme Court. If you're looking for his most famous opinions and courtroom battles, they aren't here yet.

This is the first book of a planned three-volume biography. Those stories are coming.

And if you care more about Supreme Court decisions than about the man making them, some of the long stretches on government work and legal arguments can feel heavy.

But the detail is there for a reason.

Too often, public figures get boiled down to a few controversial quotes, a headline or a political label. Rosen does the opposite. He shows you the experiences and ideas that shaped Scalia long before the country knew his name.

He doesn't forget the man outside the office, either.

Scalia was a husband, a father of nine, a deeply religious man, and someone known for his sharp humor and larger-than-life personality.

Those details matter, because understanding someone isn't the same thing as endorsing everything they believed.

A good biography gives readers enough to reach their own conclusions. This one does.

I also appreciate that Rosen treats Scalia's faith as a meaningful part of his life, not something embarrassing that needs to be explained away.

I'm an Orthodox Jew, not a Catholic. But I respect people who take their religious convictions seriously.

That respect doesn't mean giving anyone a free pass, especially someone trusted with enormous government power.

Which brings me back to the main point.

Scalia was influential and controversial. His ideas shaped American constitutional law, and the arguments over those ideas are still going today.

Understanding how he got there is valuable, no matter where you stand politically.

Rosen's research is the strongest reason to read this book. His admiration sometimes makes the account less balanced than it could be, and the sheer amount of detail won't be for everyone.

But there's real substance here.

This isn't a quick political hit piece. It isn't another shallow book designed to tell readers what they already believe.

It's a seriously researched, well-told look at a man whose influence reached far beyond his years on the Supreme Court.

And that's worth something.

The TDFP Report Card

Research and Reporting: A

Interviews with family, friends and colleagues, deep documentary research and previously unpublished writing give the book a rock-solid foundation.

Portrait of Scalia: A-

Faith, family, education, personality and career all get their due. Scalia is a whole person here, not just a judicial philosophy.

Storytelling: B+

Rosen writes with energy, wit and personality. Long legal and political stretches occasionally slow things down.

Accessibility: B

You don't need to be a lawyer to enjoy it, but some familiarity with American government and constitutional debates definitely helps.

Balance and Critical Examination: B-

Rosen's admiration is clear. His instinct to defend Scalia sometimes leaves less room for readers who want a more detached assessment.

Final Score: 8.7/10 — B+

Scalia: Rise to Greatness, 1936–1986 is a deeply researched, ambitious biography about the making of one of America's most consequential Supreme Court justices.

It has weaknesses. The detail can be a lot, and Rosen sometimes seems more interested in defending Scalia than challenging him.

But the research, the history and the rich picture of Scalia's early life make this a book worth your time if you care about American law, history and government.

You don't have to be a conservative to appreciate Scalia's influence. You don't have to agree with his decisions to understand why his judicial philosophy mattered.

And you certainly don't have to agree with someone to learn from their life.

That's the difference between understanding history and manipulating it.

The Digital Free Press doesn't exist to tell readers who they must admire. Our job is to examine the record, ask questions and hold everyone accountable.

Scalia shouldn't be exempt from that standard.

Neither should his critics.

About the Author

Yossi Schmidt is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Digital Free Press and host of The Yossi Schmidt Show. An Orthodox Jew and unapologetic advocate for free speech, transparency and independent journalism, he founded TDFP to hold everyone accountable—Big Government, Big Tech, Big Media and the political establishment—without giving either side a free pass. His work is guided by one principle: inform, don't manipulate.

Sources and Further Reading

Publisher — Scalia: Rise to Greatness, 1936–1986, James Rosen (Regnery Publishing, March 2023): https://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/9781684512270/scalia/

Benjamin C. Waterhouse, "An Unapologetic Ode to Antonin Scalia," The Washington Post, April 26, 2023: https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2023/04/26/scalia-rosen-greatness-book-review/

Edward Whelan, "How Little Nino Became Justice Scalia," Law & Liberty, March 15, 2023: https://lawliberty.org/book-review/how-little-nino-became-justice-scalia/

Hold Everyone Accountable.