Friday, February 14, 2014

The Great Dissent: How Oliver Wendell Holmes Changes His Mind — and Changed the History of Free Speech in America

Thomas Healy (Seton Hall).  The Great Dissent (Metropolitan Books, 2013).

"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 to their way of thinking—and a deeply touching human narrative of an old man saved from his loneliness and despair by a few unlikely young friends."

The Great Dissent book jacket