The Enigma of Clarence Thomas is a groundbreaking revisionist undertake the Supreme Courtroom justice everyone knows about but nobody knows.

Most people can tell you a couple of things about Clarence Thomas: Anita Hill accused him of sexual harassment, and he almost never speaks from the bench. Below are a few things they don’t understand: Thomas can be a black nationalist. In university he memorized the speeches of Malcolm X. He feels white people are incurably racist.

In the 1st examination of its kind, Corey Robin – about The Enigma of Clarence Thomas among the foremost analysts of the right – delves deeply into both Thomas’s biography and his jurisprudence, masterfully reading his Supreme Court opinions against the setting of his autobiographical and political writings and speeches. The concealed way to obtain Thomas’s conservative sights, Robin shows, is usually a serious skepticism that racism can be overcome. Thomas can be confident that any authorities action with respect to African-Americans will end up being tainted by racism; one of the most African-Americans can expect is usually that white people will get out of their method.

There’s a reason, Robin concludes, why liberals frequently complain that Thomas doesn’t speak but seldom pay attention when he will. Were they to listen, they’d hear a racial pessimism that frequently sounds similar to their very own. Cutting over the ideological range, this unacknowledged consensus about the impossibility of progress is key to understanding today’s political stalemate.