"Throughout his tenure, Justice Rehnquist was conventionally perceived as a conservative, partly for the anti-civil rights memos he had written earlier in his career. He became a lightning rod for controversy during his confirmation hearings for Associate Justice in 1972, and again in 1986 when he became Chief Justice. Hudson's balanced, nonpartisan examination of the Rehnquist Court and its personalities shows that, surprisingly, Rehnquist's conservatism is quite mild compared to that of the "ideological purity" of Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, and that Rehnquist did an admirable job of playing moderator as Chief Justice, exhibiting sensitivity toward his colleagues."--BOOK JACKET.