Welcome to the online home of author, Peter S. Canellos

Peter S. Canellos is the author of The Great Dissenter: The Story of John Marshall Harlan, America’s Judicial Hero, and the editor of the bestselling Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy. In a 30-year journalism career, he has been POLITICO’s executive editor, leading the newsroom during the 2016 presidential coverage; and the editorial page editor of The Boston Globe. He has also been a Pulitzer Prize finalist, a recipient of the American Society of Newspaper Editors award in 2011 for excellence in editorial writing along with the 2022 George Polk Award, Robin Toner Award, and News Leaders Association Batten Medal for his writing about the Supreme Court

 

Revenge for the Sixties is a timely and illuminating biography that traces Samuel Anthony Alito Jr.’s path from a working-class, Catholic immigrant family to the center of a decades-long conservative legal movement. Award-winning journalist Peter S. Canellos examines the personal convictions, political grievances, and institutional forces that shaped Alito’s judicial career and culminated in his authorship of Dobbs v. Jackson, the decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. With clarity and depth, Canellos shows how Alito’s worldview has driven transformative rulings on religion, gun rights, affirmative action, and the limits of government power—and why understanding Alito’s story is essential to understanding the future of American law and democracy. 

More information on the Revenge for the Sixties can be found here.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.

When Princeton University cancelled its finals on May 2, 1970, one student was crushed. He was ready to ace the tests. But fate intervened. President Nixon invaded Cambodia. Young men threw away their draft cards. Someone bombed the headquarters of the ROTC, of which the student was a proud member. Years later, the student, Samuel A. Alito Jr., stood before the US Senate as a Supreme Court nominee and said, “I saw some very smart people and very privileged people behaving irresponsibly.” 

– From Revenge for the Sixties

Order
"I saw some smart very smart people and very privileged people behaving irresponsibly."
Samuel Alito Jr.