Richard Michel­son and Sta­cy Innerst’s high­ly rec­om­mend­ed pic­ture book biog­ra­phy of Louis Bran­deis cap­tures the impres­sive core of his accom­plish­ments. As the sub­ti­tle clev­er­ly declares, this cru­sad­ing advo­cate for the rights of work­ers, women, Jews, and all Amer­i­cans rose to the high­est pro­fes­sion­al posi­tion, as a Jus­tice of the Supreme Court. Each page of text gives evi­dence of his skills, intel­li­gence, and per­sis­tence, and every illus­tra­tion con­verts an icon into a com­plex human being.

On the cov­er, Bran­deis care­ful­ly holds a bal­anced scale, which rep­re­sents his ideals. With one foot atop a pile of books, he has ascend­ed through his edu­ca­tion. The black robe asso­ci­at­ed with his career swings behind him like a magician’s cape; the breadth of Brandeis’s achieve­ments, root­ed in prag­ma­tism and prin­ci­ple, almost defies belief. His Ger­man Jew­ish fam­i­ly was finan­cial­ly priv­i­leged, yet anti­semitism was a con­stant obsta­cle in his striv­ing for suc­cess. Michel­son repeat­ed­ly uses the phrase ​“any fool knows,” when report­ing the advice of Brandeis’s par­ents, who empha­sized val­ues of equal­i­ty, hon­esty, and com­mon sense.

Nine­teenth-cen­tu­ry Amer­i­ca includ­ed dif­fer­ent mod­els for Jew­ish iden­ti­ty. Brandeis’s back­ground was decid­ed­ly not tra­di­tion­al­ly obser­vant; his par­ents were assim­i­lat­ed to the point of cel­e­brat­ing Christ­mas. At his uncle’s house, how­ev­er, kosher laws and Sab­bath rit­u­als were hon­ored. Regard­less, the degree to which one prac­ticed Judaism did not alter the anti­semitism one faced. The only Jew in his class at Har­vard Law School, as well as the youngest stu­dent, Bran­deis stood out aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly. What Louis Bran­deis Knows shows that, as his career advanced, he remained aware that Jew­ish eth­nic­i­ty con­ferred a mar­gin­al­ized status.

Michel­son explains the con­text of Brandeis’s legal work in the Pro­gres­sive Move­ment. In the ear­ly twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry, many Amer­i­cans became com­mit­ted to address­ing eco­nom­ic inequal­i­ty, through labor unions, social activism, and legal chal­lenges. Brandeis’s reliance on data and social con­text in fram­ing his argu­ments was so impor­tant that it became known as the ​“Bran­deis brief.” When monop­o­lis­tic cor­po­ra­tions used their pow­er to oppress work­ing peo­ple, Bran­deis cham­pi­oned the under­dog and won sig­nif­i­cant vic­to­ries that pro­tect­ed their rights. When Pres­i­dent Woodrow Wil­son nom­i­nat­ed him for a posi­tion on the Supreme Court, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the pow­er­ful forces that he had chal­lenged opposed his nom­i­na­tion. Nev­er­the­less, he was approved by the Sen­ate, and became the first Jew­ish Supreme Court Justice.

Louis Bran­deis was also a leader of the Zion­ist move­ment well before it was more broad­ly accept­ed by Amer­i­can Jews. Michel­son briefly men­tions calls for a Jew­ish home­land in the text, and gives fur­ther detail about Brandeis’s role in the book’s after­word and time­line. While the far-reach­ing influ­ence of his legal deci­sions might be his most sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to Amer­i­can his­to­ry, his unre­lent­ing defense of a demo­c­ra­t­ic Jew­ish state is con­sis­tent with the rest of his legacy.

Illus­tra­tions of Bran­deis alter­nate with equal­ly evoca­tive scenes of oth­er Amer­i­cans. Somber fig­ures of Jew­ish refugees enter the Unit­ed States in a great wave of immi­gra­tion. Strik­ing work­ers hold up signs demand­ing their rights. Women work­ing long hours at tedious tasks con­cen­trate on their work. Through­out, Innerst empha­sizes the dig­ni­ty of Brandeis’s demeanor, along with his com­pas­sion for the vast num­ber of cit­i­zens who need­ed his advo­ca­cy to sup­port their own move­ments for change.