The Great Dissent: How Oliver Wendell Holmes Changed His Mind--and Changed the History of Free Speech in America
- ISBN-10
- 1429949090
- ISBN-13
- 9781429949095
- Series
- The Great Dissent
- Category
- History
- Pages
- 336
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2013-08-20
- Publisher
- Metropolitan Books
- Author
- Thomas Healy
Description
A gripping intellectual history reveals how Oliver Wendell Holmes became a free-speech advocate and established the modern understanding of the First Amendment No right seems more fundamental to American public life than freedom of speech. Yet well into the twentieth century, that freedom was still an unfulfilled promise, with Americans regularly imprisoned merely for speaking out against government policies. Indeed, free speech as we know it comes less from the First Constitutional Amendment than from a most unexpected source: Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. A lifelong skeptic, he disdained all individual rights, including the right to express one's political views. But in 1919, it was Holmes who wrote a dissenting opinion that would become the canonical affirmation of free speech in the United States. Why did Holmes change his mind? That question has puzzled historians for almost a century. Now, with the aid of newly discovered letters and confidential memos, law professor Thomas Healy reconstructs in vivid detail Holmes's journey from free-speech opponent to First Amendment hero. It is the story of a remarkable behind-the-scenes campaign by a group of progressives to bring a legal icon around to their way of thinking—and a deeply touching human narrative of an old man saved from loneliness and despair by a few unlikely young friends. Beautifully written and exhaustively researched, The Great Dissent is intellectual history at its best, revealing how free debate can alter the life of a man and the legal landscape of an entire nation. A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2013
Get the book
Other editions
-
- 2014-09-09
- 352 pages
- Paperback
- Picador
-
- 2013-08-20
- 322 pages
- Paperback
- Macmillan
-
- 1991-08-15
- 256 pages
- Ebook
- Oxford University Press
-
- 1991
- 246 pages
- Paperback
- Oxford University Press on Demand
Similar books
-
Why Societies Need Dissent
By Robert Walmsley University Professor Cass R Sunstein, Cass R. SunsteinIn this timely book, Cass R. Sunstein shows that organizations and nations are far more likely to prosper if they welcome dissent and promote openness. Attacking "political correctness" in all...
-
Dissent and the Supreme Court: Its Role in the Court's History and the Nation's Constitutional Dialogue
By Melvin I. UrofskyDissent on the court and off, Urofsky argues in this major work, has been a crucial ingredient in keeping the Constitution alive and must continue to be so.
-
I Dissent: Great Opposing Opinions in Landmark Supreme Court Cases
By Mark TushnetIn offering thirteen famous dissents-from Marbury v. Madison and Brown v. Board of Education to Griswold v. Connecticut and Lawrence v.
-
The Great Medieval Heretics: Five Centuries of Religious Dissent
By Michael FrassettoDescribes the heretical beliefs and loves of such figures as Marguerite Porete, Fra Dolcino, and John Wyclif.
-
The Great Camouflage: Writings of Dissent (1941–1945)
By Suzanne CésaireA new and complete English translation
-
Summary of Thomas Healy's The Great Dissenter
By , Everest MediaPlease note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The story of Holmes’s journey toward enlightenment is a tale of how he spent the majority of his life as a judge, and how he enjoyed it.
-
The Fundamental Holmes: A Free Speech Chronicle and Reader - Selections from the Opinions, Books, Articles, Speeches, Letters and Other...
By Oliver Wendell Holmes1841 March 8: 1857 Autumn: 1861 April: May 25: July 17: July 23: October 21: 1862 September 17: 1863 May 3: 1864 July 17: September: 1866 Summer: 1867 March 4: Born in Boston to OliverWendellHolmes Sr. and Amelia Lee Jackson.
-
The Great Dissent: John Henry Newman and the Liberal Heresy
By Robert PattisonThis volume argues that Newman's religious philosophy developed as an attempt to salvage truth from the liberal scepticism prevalent in his day.
-
The Brilliant Boy: Doc Evatt and the Great Australian Dissent
By Gideon HaighIn the rst half of the twentieth century, no Labor name was uttered with such reverence, resentment and dread as that of Jack Lang. 'The Big Fella' exuded pugnacity – jut-jawed and barrel-chested, bulk crowned by a majestic domed ...
-
Democracy's Prisoner: Eugene V. Debs, the Great War, and the Right to Dissent
By Ernest FreebergIn this memorable story of democracy on trial, Freeberg excavates an extraordinary episode in the history of one of America’s most prized ideals.