Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: Law and the Inner Self

by G. Edward White

Book Overview

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,...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 019508182X
• ISBN13: 9780195081824
• Release Date: November 1993
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 648 Pages
• Weight: 2.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 2.0" x 6.5" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

A wonderful book. Very detailed but also lucid.

Two apsects strike me in reading about Holmes. First is his life. What a great subject. Holmes is almost as exciting to read about as Lincoln. The second is his jurisprudence. White does a fine job covering both. I like White's style. Somewhat loose but never inaccurate, his biography is very readable.Two chapters: The Supreme Court of Massachusetts and the "Progressive Judge" are so wonderfully written that they deserve to be read twice.I read the book over a period of four months which is something I rarely do. This is because the subject and content are so important that the philosophy of Holmes takes some time to perculate. White's description of Holmes influenced my perspective greatly.I would recommend the book to any person interested in law or simply about America.