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Loading... Louis D. Brandeis: American Prophet (Jewish Lives) (edition 2016)by Jeffrey Rosen (Author)
Work InformationLouis D. Brandeis: American Prophet (Jewish Lives) by Jeffrey Rosen
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. I try each year to focus on a certain genre, so for 2020 I picked biographies. I found this series called Jewish Lives that is published by Yale University Press, and this my first dip into the series. Brandeis is known for being the first Jewish Supreme Court Justice, as well as being an authority on constitutional law, monopolies, unions, and other issues related to protecting the common man from big business. From this book, he didn't seem to be particularly observant but he was a strong supporter of the Zionist movement. He also was a philanthropist and donated a lot of money he accumulated (he was very thrifty) to higher education. My only issue is I wish it included more about his personal life instead of focusing on his career, but it's a short book so there are plenty of longer books on the subject. The good thing about this series is it makes you decide whether you want to read more about the person. This series is a good bar mitzvah gift, but the reading level may be advanced for a 13 year old. Louis Brandeis was the first Jew to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. This is an elegant and judicious look at the extraordinary jurist whose pioneering opinions on the sanctity of privacy and the dangers of bigness remain pertinent in the era of internet and of institutions said to be too big to fail. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has identified Brandeis as one of her models for his craftsmanship and his ability to combine a dedication to judicial restraint with a readiness to defend civil rights and liberties when our constitutional values required it. no reviews | add a review
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A riveting new examination of the leading progressive justice of his era, published in the centennial year of his confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court According to Jeffrey Rosen, Louis D. Brandeis was ́the Jewish Jefferson, ́ the greatest critic of what he called ́the curse of bigness, ́ in business and government, since the author of the Declaration of Independence. Published to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of his Supreme Court confirmation on June 1, 1916, Louis D. Brandeis: American Prophet argues that Brandeis was the most farseeing constitutional philosopher of the twentieth century. In addition to writing the most famous article on the right to privacy, he also wrote the most important Supreme Court opinions about free speech, freedom from government surveillance, and freedom of thought and opinion. And as the leader of the American Zionist movement, he convinced Woodrow Wilson and the British government to recognize a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Combining narrative biography with a passionate argument for why Brandeis matters today, Rosen explores what Brandeis, the Jeffersonian prophet, can teach us about historic and contemporary questions involving the Constitution, monopoly, corporate and federal power, technology, privacy, free speech, and Zionism. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)347.732634Social sciences Law Courts And Procedure North America United States The Supreme CourtLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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I do recommend the book, but it has its drawbacks. Chief among those is its verge into hagiography. The author does point out certain inconsistencies but the praise is somewhat overdone. Clearly Brandeis was a great judge as well as legal philosopher. You should determine for yourself if any man is as great as described.
Note: I was interrupted in reading this book by the loan of several books by a relative. It did not take one month to read.
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