In this revised third edition of a classic in American jurisprudence, G. Edward White updates his series of portraits of the most famous appellate judges in American history from John Marshall to Oliver W. Holmes to Warren E. Burger, with a new chapter on the Rehnquist Court. White traces the development of the American judicial tradition through biographical sketches of the careers and contributions of these renowned judges. In this updated edition, he argues that the Rehnquist Court's approach to constitutional interpretation may have ushered in a new stage in the American judicial...

For decades, a great number of Americans saw Alger Hiss as an innocent victim of McCarthyism--a distinguished diplomat railroaded by an ambitious Richard Nixon. And even as the case against Hiss grew over time, his dignified demeanor helped create an aura of innocence that outshone the facts in many minds.
Now G. Edward White deftly draws together the countless details of Hiss's life--from his upper middle-class childhood in Baltimore and his brilliant success at Harvard to his later career as a self-made martyr to McCarthyism--to paint a fascinating portrait of a man whose life was...

Known as the "Great Dissenter," Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. wrote some of the most eloquent opinions in the history of the United States Supreme Court. A brilliant legal mind who served on the high court into his nineties, Holmes was responsible for some of the most important judicial opinions of the twentieth century.
Now, in this superb short biography, G. Edward White offers readers a lively, informative portrait of this singular individual. The book first sketches Holmes's early years--his childhood in Boston, his undergraduate years at Harvard (which his father and both grandfathers...

Much more than an historical examination of liability, criminal law, torts, bail, possession and ownership, and contracts, The Common Law articulates the ideas and judicial theory of one of the greatest justices of the Supreme Court. G. Edward White reminds us why the book remains essential reading not only for law students but also for anyone interested in American history. The text published is, with occasional corrections of typographical errors, identical with that found in the first and all subsequent printings by Little, Brown.

A renowned legal historian's collection of astute and timeless essays on such important subjects as the process, method and debates of legal history; the unvarnished truth about Holmes and Brandeis; legal realism and its critics; the origins of tort law in America; appellate opinions as research sources; Brown v. Board of Education and the roles of Earl Warren and of public opinion; and the development of gay rights and relationship privacy and liberty in U.S. constitutional law.

This is a collection of essays addressing many of the major issues in American legal history. Opening essays discuss the historiography and development of methodology of American legal history. Other sections consider prominent issues and people such as judicial review, Critical Legal Studies, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. Taken together, the essays provide a survey of the field of modern American legal history.

This collection of essays by G. Edward White provides, in one place, discussion of a number of the substantive issues of current interest in American legal history and jurisprudence. Ranging through a diverse body of subjects, including "doing history" (methodology and practice), judicial review, and the politics of jurisprudence, the author both explores important topics and raises critical issues affecting the process of writing legal history. Topics include the nature and process of "revisionism" in historical writing, the role of lawyers in the New Deal, the roles of evidence and...

In the first of the three volumes of his projected comprehensive narrative history of the role of law in America from the colonial years through the twentieth century, G. Edward White takes up the central themes of American legal history from the earliest European settlements through the Civil War.

Included in the coverage of this volume are the interactions between European and Amerindian legal systems in the years of colonial settlement; the crucial role of Anglo-American theories of sovereignty and imperial governance in facilitating the separation of the American colonies from the...

In this second installment of G. Edward White's sweeping history of law in America from the colonial era to the present, White, covers the period between 1865-1929, which encompasses Reconstruction, rapid industrialization, a huge influx of immigrants, the rise of Jim Crow, the emergence of an American territorial empire, World War I, and the booming yet xenophobic 1920s. As in the first volume, he connects the evolution of American law to the major political, economic, cultural, social, and demographic developments of the era. To enrich his account, White draws from the latest research from...