Synopses & Reviews
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 tradition. The update also includes a new preface and revised bibliographic note.
Review
Acclaim for previous editions
"[A]n outstanding book.[A] keenly intelligent and insightful explanation of how American appellate judges have justified the special power they have in this nation."--Journal of American History
Acclaim for previous editions
"White has written a thoughtful and often provocative work. The portraits are lucid, salient and well focused, and they readily suggest the variety of ways in which judges have exercised the personal discretion permitted by institutions of law."--The American Historical Review
Acclaim for previous editions
"...stimulating and highly readable.... The American Judicial Tradition...provides an excellent introduction to some of the most influential American judges and cases [and] like all good books, provokes as many questions as it resolves."--Administrative Law Review
Acclaim for previous editions
"[P]rovide[s] a trenchant insight into the professional background, commitments, and jurisprudence of those jurists as well as a genuine understanding of the historical periods in which they functioned. We are all in Professor White's debt for a major achievement."--Virginia Law Review
About the Author
G. Edward White is University Professor and David and Mary Harrison Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Virginia. He is author of several works of biography and law that include the award-winning
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., and most recently,
Alger Hiss's Looking Glass Wars.
Table of Contents
Preface to Third Edition
Preface to Expanded Edition
Preface
Introduction
1. John Marshall and the Genesis of the Tradition
2. Kent, Story, and Shaw: The Judicial Function and Property Rights
3. Roger Taney and the Limits of Judicial Power
4. Political Ideologies, Professional Norms, and the State Judiciary in the Late Ninteenth Century: Cooley and Doe
5. John Marshall Harlan I: The Precursor
6. The Tradition at the Close of the Nineteenth Century
7. Holmes, Brandeis, and the Origins of Judicial Liberalism
8. Hughes and Stone: Ironies of the Chief Justiceship
9. Personal versus Impersonal Judging: The Dilemmas of Robert Jackson
10. Cardozo, Learned Hand, and Frank: The Dialectic of Freedom and Constraint
11. Rationality and Intuition in the Process of Judging: Roger Traynor
12. The Mosaic of the Warren Court: Frankfurter, Black, Warren, and Harlan
13. The Anti-Judge: William O. Douglas and the Ambiguities of Individuality
14. The Burger Court and the Idea of "Transition" in the American Judicial Tradition
15. The Unexpectedness of the Rehnquist Court
16. The Tradition and the Future
Appendix: Chronology of Judicial Service
Notes
Bibliographical Note
Index