Justice Holmes

<p>Written in a lucid style and well illustrated <em>Justice Holmes: The Measure of His Thought</em> offers a biographical look at the influences that have shaped his judicial outlook especially his open-minded refusal to inject his own views into his legal decisions. The authors demonstrate—especially through United States Supreme Court Justice Holmes’s 1919 opinions on speech—what would be obvious to a veteran of the courtroom but not always to a biographer or a professor: that there is a big difference between “questions of law” before an appellate judge and “questions of fact” determined by a trial judge or jury. The authors also examine Holmes’s childhood and family influences as well as his Civil War experience that shaped his views on natural law and religion.</p><p>The book describes Holmes’s intellectual influences and includes photos of his book collection now at the Library of Congress. Through a discussion of the letters Holmes wrote at his Beverly Farms MA home where he summered when the Court was not in session we are given a window into his remarkable wit as well as his philosophical views. The book includes rare photographs of Beverly Farms.</p>