Oliver Wendell Holmes: A Life in Conflict, Regulation, and Concepts

“Persistently gripping.… [I]t’s possessed of a zest and omnivorous curiosity that displays the boundless power of its topic.” ―Steve Donoghue, Christian Science Monitor

Oliver Wendell Holmes escaped demise twice as a younger Union officer within the Civil Conflict. He lived ever after with unwavering ethical braveness, unremitting scorn for dogma, and an insatiable mental curiosity. Throughout his almost three many years on the Supreme Court docket, he wrote a sequence of opinions that may show prophetic in securing freedom of speech, defending the rights of felony defendants, and ending the Court docket’s reactionary resistance to social and financial reforms.

As a pioneering authorized scholar, Holmes revolutionized the understanding of frequent regulation. As an enthusiastic good friend, he wrote hundreds of letters brimming with an abiding pleasure in combating the nice struggle. Drawing on many beforehand unpublished letters and data, Stephen Budiansky provides the fullest portrait but of this pivotal American determine.

90 illustrations