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Looking at Holmes in the Mirror

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 October 2011

G. Edward White
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Extract

The ubiquity and endurance of Justice Holmes as a figure of historical interest has begun to rival the prominence of Holmes during his lifetime. It seems that each time the direction of American scholarship takes a new turn, a group of scholars emerges with some ‘fresh’ thoughts on Holmes; it seems that no matter how much Holmes has been dissected or analyzed, he provides commentators with something new to write about. The appearance of a series of scholarly assessments of Holmes in the 1980s provides another example of this phenomenon. In an article published in 1982 I noted that four lectures and symposia had been devoted to Holmes since 1980; in addition, two books devoted entirely to Holmes, another in which Holmes figures prominently, and a series of law review articles on Holmes have appeared in the decade. Once again the scholarly process of generational revisionism has included Holmes. In seeing themselves and their work anew commentators have also seen the image of Holmes in altered form.

Type
Review Essay
Information
Law and History Review , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , Fall 1986 , pp. 439 - 465
Copyright
Copyright © the American Society for Legal History, Inc. 1986

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References

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57. ‘I always have said that the rights of a given crowd are what they will fight for. I once heard the older Agassiz say of some place in Germany that there would be a revolution if you raise the price of a glass of beer.’ Holmes to Harold Laski, July 23, 1925 in Howe, Mark DeWolfe, ed., Holmes—Laski Letters 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1953) ii: 762Google Scholar.

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65. Ibid. at 630.

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79. ‘[Holmes's] hesitancy to adopt final standards was a logical outcome of his skepticism. It reflected even more the essential humility which his investigations of cosmic truth had demanded of him.’ David H. Burton, supra note 2 at 142.

80. Benjamin Kaplan at 25.

81. Patrick Atiyah in ibid. at 27.

82. Jan Vetter in ibid. at 101.

83. Frederic R. Kellogg, supra note 5 at ix.