The centennial of the appointment of Louis D. Brandeis to the Supreme Court in 1916 has provided a welcome occasion to revisit the work and thought of a seminal figure in American life and law, and Jeffrey Rosen's new book makes a worthwhile contribution to that discussion. Unlike a number of prior works by distinguished Brandeis scholars, Rosen's book is not a “comprehensive biography” (8) although it is part of a series on “Jewish Lives” ranging from Moses to Barbara Streisand and Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein to Groucho Marx. Although Rosen presents some information regarding Brandeis's remarkable career as a lawyer, public citizen, and jurist, his mission is “to introduce readers to what Brandeis thought and why he matters today” (8), not to detail the events of Brandeis's extraordinary career.

Rosen's subtitle, American Prophet, reveals his theme, and his first sentence describes it more particularly when he labels Brandeis as “the most important American critic” of “‘the curse of bigness’ in government and business since Thomas Jefferson” (1). Rosen traces Brandeis's thought beginning with that critique of “the curse of bigness,” which occupies the Introduction and the first chapter, which bears that name, and the second (“Other People's Money”) which draws its title from another Brandeis writing and points out the perils of concentrated economic power through access to other people's funds. Surely Brandeis was a Jeffersonian, as Rosen argues, even though Brandeis's focused study of Jefferson seems to have occurred in the mid-1920s, near the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence when Brandeis was already 70, and long after he had espoused principles consistent with Jefferson's. Brandeis first read another cherished authority, Alfred Zimmern's The Greek Commonwealth, in 1913, but his commitment to the virtues of democratic society preceded his interaction with this source. Brandeis's appreciation of the virtues of smallness and democracy were intrinsic parts of his thought, which were reinforced, rather than inspired, by his exposure to Jefferson and the Greeks.

Brandeis's critique of bigness, before and during his service on the Court, ranked among his distinctive contributions to American thought as Rosen suggests; however, Brandeis did not attack bigness as an end in itself. Instead, he saw it as an impediment to the sort of society that promoted individual and collective development. Bigness concentrated power and responsibility, thereby depriving many of the opportunity to develop, and risking the corruption that unchecked power fostered.

Rosen's chapter on “Laboratories of Democracy” is not limited to Brandeis's appreciation of the role of the states in America's constitutional system as the term is conventionally used. Rather, Rosen points out, Brandeis's judicial philosophy emphasized judicial deference, aversion to bigness in economic and governmental spheres, and an effort to translate the framers’ values into contemporary times. He also discusses Brandeis's commitment to robust speech as a crucial instrument of democratic society, and to privacy as a source of the thought that nurtured such communication.

Rosen presents Brandeis's commitment to Zionism as an application of his “Jeffersonian ideals about democratic participation and small-scale self-government” (146). He argues that Brandeis may have miscalculated the degree to which religion motivated some Zionists and the resistance of Arab populations to Jewish settlers; however, his ability to reconcile Zionism with American patriotism reflected an enlightened balance between individualism and communalism that was much more sophisticated than the multiculturalist and assimilationist tendencies that afflict modern society.

Rosen presents a useful tour through Brandeis's rich thought, which will reward even a reader well versed in Brandeis's contributions. The book is not perfect. Rosen gets an occasional fact wrong, such as the vote to confirm Brandeis for the Court, which was 47 to 22, not 56 to 28 (98). Rosen's error might have come from treating expressed preferences as votes; however, they are not the same, and the official tally is widely available.

Rosen also goes too far in suggesting that Brandeis, like Jefferson, “had a blind spot on race” (18). Unlike Woodrow Wilson, nothing in Brandeis's record suggests opposition to racial justice, and in many instances, as Rosen points out, Brandeis joined Court opinions supportive of racial equality or took steps to support the development of African-American lawyers. Racial equality was not one of Brandeis's causes, but it seems unfair to criticize someone who pursued many progressive causes effectively because he did not devote time to all of them or to the most worthy of them. Each of us chooses his or her battles, and there is no one who has championed some worthy cause who has not ignored many others.

Rosen's Epilogue recounts the influence that Brandeis has had on modern jurists such as Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Elena Kagan. Their tributes are helpful; however, Brandeis's influence is far more pervasive, and informed the behavior of many of those who have served on the Court since he retired in 1939. Rosen's technique of asking how Brandeis would have responded to contemporary problems frames the question improperly. One can never know how someone who died 75 years ago would have responded to a time in which he did not live, nor to problems that he never encountered. The best members of succeeding generations can do is to take the approach that Brandeis used in analyzing problems, the principles he championed, and the examples he left, and apply those legacies as best we can in dealing with the demands of the ever-changing and challenging world in which we live. Rosen's book provides a discussion of the lessons that Brandeis left, which can usefully guide contemporary men and women.