Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.: Civil War Soldier, Supreme Court Justice (okładka  miękka)

The man Franklin Delano Roosevelt once called 'the greatest living American,' and who legal scholars are apt to term the 'Great Dissenter,' Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., was born in Massachusetts, the son of a doctor and author. From the antebellum era through the First World War and into the New Deal years, Holmes' life and career as a Supreme Court Justice span an eventful period of American history, and his decisions shaped the country. The argument of his most famous ruling, Schenck vs. United States (1919), in which he established that the First Amendment did not protect an individual if they posed a 'clear and present danger' to society, is familiar to most Americans. In this concise book, Susan-Mary Grant puts Holmes' life in national context with a focus on an individual whose perspective on both law and life was, like that of his nation, ultimately both confirmed and constrained by conflict. With a selection of primary documents including Holmes' most important decisions, letters from his Civil War diary, extracts from speeches, and his obituary, Oliver Wendall Holmes Jr. introduces students of U.S. and legal history to a game-changing figure.