Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer’s A Twentieth-Century Life is more than a memoir—it’s an ode to America and a solemn reminder of the promises and values on which this country’s greatness resides, spanning from Breyer’s coming of age in an era of post-war idealism, to his appointment to the court during the Clinton years, to his perspective as a retired justice on how the country views the court today.

What have I learned from this life? What has most mattered? Born in San Francisco in the years just before World War II, Stephen Breyer grew up in a cosmopolitan world: recent immigrants living alongside longer established families; Democrats and Republicans intersecting in civic organization; people from a mix of backgrounds and religions—Italian, Chinese, African American, Jewish, WASP—living in purposeful community. This world was by no means perfect, but it was animated by a common commitment to shared values, as well as to the hard work and industry required to make those ideals real. That commitment, which Breyer saw in the examples of his parents and in everyday actions of his neighbors and teachers, was also writ large in the idealism of America in the post-war moment. A commitment to the rule of law, and to the intensity of effort required to make real the law’s promise, was the nation’s sacred compact.

At once an extraordinary work of memoir and a letter to the next generation, this book shares Justice Breyer’s reflections on lessons learned as a child of the 20th century—lessons that might help frame how to think about the complex tangle of law, tradition, government, and society that now face children of the 21st. Drawing on wisdom gained from literature, from his father and his wife, and from women and men such as Arthur Golberg, Don Turner, Archibald Cox, Ted Kennedy, Sandra Day O’Connor, and other colleagues on the first Circuit and the Supreme Court who have helped shape his understanding of the world, Breyer traces his singular life from his childhood in California through to his education at Oxford, and his years moving between the academic study of the law and its most serious practical exercise that would culminate in his appointment to the Supreme Court.

A love letter to America and a solemn reminder of the promises and values on which this country’s greatness resides, A Twentieth-Century Life speaks directly to the rising generations of the 21st century, who must renew their commitment to the rule of law and to the institutions that assure the continuing success of the American Experiment.