Download The Great Dissent: How Oliver Wendell Holmes Changed His Mind and Changed the History of Free Speech in America AudioBook Free
No right seems more important to American general public life than liberty of speech. Yet well in to the 20th hundred years, that liberty was still an unfulfilled assurance, with Us citizens regularly imprisoned only for speaking out against government insurance policies. Indeed, free speech as we realize it comes less from the First Amendment than from a most unexpected source: Supreme Judge justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. A lifelong skeptic, he disdained all specific rights, including the right to communicate one's politics views. But in 1919, it was Holmes who composed a dissenting opinion that would end up being the canonical affirmation of free speech in the United States. Why did Holmes change his head? That question has puzzled historians for almost a hundred years. Now, using newly discovered letters and confidential memos, law professor Thomas Healy reconstructs in vibrant detail Holmes's trip from free-speech challenger to First Amendment hero. It's the story of an remarkable behind-the-scenes advertising campaign by a group of progressives to bring a legal icon around with their thought process - and a deeply coming in contact with individuals narrative of an old man saved from loneliness and despair by a few improbable young friends. Wonderfully written and exhaustively explored, The Great Dissent is intellectual record at its best, uncovering how free argument can alter the life span of a guy and the legal landscape of a whole nation.
