A fascinating look at the life and thought of the great jurist and
scholar that vividly connects his sometimes dry legal pedantry and
his remarkable life and personality. White (Law and
History/University of Virginia; Earl Warren, 1982, etc. - not
reviewed) presents a more rounded portrait than Livia Baker's The
Justice from Beacon Hill (1991), which emphasized Holmes's life and
character. Instead, White underscores the evolution of the jurist's
unique career and jurisprudence from the unusual circumstances of
his life. White represents Holmes's commitment to "professionalism"
as a reaction against the dilettantish literary culture of his
father: The jurist, he tells us, gave up his early love of letters
and philosophy in order to devote himself totally to legal
scholarship (he became editor of the prestigious American Law
Review while still a practicing attorney). White also doesn't
neglect the effect of Holmes's Civil War career on his philosophy:
Holmes spent most of the war recovering from wounds incurred at
Ball's Bluff, Antietam, and Chancellorsville, and White speculates
that the experience led to an early emphasis on "duties" rather
than rights in Holmes's legal thought. The author points out,
however, that this emphasis faded after Holmes became a judge,
first on Massachusetts's Supreme Court, then on the US Supreme
Court; he evolved, in fact, into one of the early champions of
First Amendment rights. White devotes a chapter to Holmes's classic
The Common Law (1881), which he shows as reflecting the pragmatic
and empirical cast of Holmes's thought, and he also discusses at
length the quirks of Holmes's personal life - his childless
marriage, his many flirtations, and his emotionally significant
romance with Clare Castletown - making the jurist come alive
despite the many contradictions of his personality. Here, Holmes is
depicted not as the civil libertarian of legal myth but as a judge
and scholar whose jurisprudence reflected his life and the
intellectual milieu in which he lived. A fine, balanced portrait.
(Kirkus Reviews)
By any measure, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., led a full and
remarkable life. He was tall and exceptionally attractive,
especially as he aged, with piercing eyes, a shock of white hair,
and prominent moustache. He was the son of a famous father (Oliver
Wendell Holmes, Sr., renowned for "The Autocrat of the Breakfast
Table"), a thrice-wounded veteran of the Civil War, a
Harvard-educated member of Brahmin Boston, the acquaintance of
Longfellow, Lowell, and Emerson, and for a time a close friend of
William James. He wrote one of the classic works of American legal
scholarship, The CommonLaw, and he served with distinction on the
Supreme Court of the United States. He was actively involved in the
Court's work into his nineties.
In Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, G. Edward White, the acclaimed
biographer of Earl Warren and one of America's most esteemed legal
scholars, provides a rounded portrait of this remarkable jurist. We
see Holmes's early life in Boston and at Harvard, his ambivalent
relationship with his father, and his harrowing service during the
Civil War (he was wounded three times, twice nearly fatally, shot
in the chest in his first action, and later shot through the neck
at Antietam). White examines Holmes's curious, childless marriage
(his diary for 1872 noted on June 17th that he had married Fanny
Bowditch Dixwell, and the next sentence indicated that he had
become the sole editor of the American Law Review) and he includes
new information on Holmes's relationship with Clare Castletown.
White not only provides a vivid portrait of Holmes's life, but
examines in depth the inner life and thought of this preeminent
legal figure. There is a full chapter devoted to The Common Law,
for instance, and throughout the book, there is astute commentary
on Holmes's legal writings. Indeed, White reveals that some of the
themes that have dominated 20th-century American
jurisprudence--including protection for free speech and the belief
that "judges make the law"--originated in Holmes's work. Perhaps
most important, White suggests that understanding Holmes's life is
crucial to understanding his work, and he continually stresses the
connections between Holmes's legal career and his personal life.
For instance, his desire to distinguish himself from his father and
from the "soft" literary culture of his father's generation drove
him to legal scholarship of a particularly demanding kind.
White's biography of Earl Warren was hailed by Anthony Lewis on the
cover of The New York Times Book Review as "serious and
fascinating," and The Los Angeles Times noted that "White has gone
beyond the labels and given us the man." In Justice Oliver Wendell
Holmes, White has produced an equally serious and fascinating
biography, one that again goes beyond the labels and gives us the
man himself.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
