A new volume in the Oliver Wendell Holmes Devise History of the U.S. Supreme Court offers the definitive history of the Court from 1921 to 1930 when William Howard Taft was chief justice. “The Taft Court: Making Law for a Divided Nation, 1921–1930” recounts the ambivalent effort to create a modern American administrative state out of the institutional innovations of World War I. The book publishes Jan. 25.
Written by Robert W. Post, the Sterling Professor of Law at Yale Law School, the volume shows how the Taft Court sought to establish authoritative forms of constitutional interpretation despite the culture wars that enveloped prohibition and pervasive labor unrest. Post explores in detail how constitutional law responds to altered circumstances. He provides comprehensive portraits of seminal figures such as Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. and Louis Dembitz Brandeis and describes Taft’s many judicial reforms and his profound alteration of the role of chief justice.
A critical and timely contribution, “The Taft Court” sheds light on jurisprudential debates that are just as relevant today as they were a century ago.
The Oliver Wendell Holmes Devise was established by Congress in 1955 to administer funds bequeathed by the associate justice to document and disseminate the history of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Published by Cambridge University Press in association with the Library of Congress, “The Taft Court” is available in hardcover ($250) and e-book formats. It can also be accessed online via the Cambridge Core Collection. For more information, visit Cambridge University Press.
Cambridge University Press publishes a wide range of research monographs, academic reference, textbooks, books for professionals, and large numbers of books aimed at graduate students.
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