BTSA: "The Common Law" by Oliver Wendell Holmes w/ Historian Stephen Budiansky

C-SPAN Bookshelf

Our guest this week is historian Stephen Budianksy, who shares his insights into the late Justice's life and work.

After serving in the Civil War, during which he was wounded, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. became a scholar and jurist, eventually rising to the U.S. Supreme Court after being nominated by President Theodore Roosevelt.

While practicing law in Boston, Holmes summarized a series of lectures he had delivered and had them published in 1881 as a book titled The Common Law. Holmes is known for the maxim, "The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience," and that the law develops according to the "felt necessities of the time." He served on the high court for nearly 30 years, retiring at age 90, and has been of the most frequently cited justices.

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