Robert H. Jackson: A Life in Judgment [Hardcover]

The first biography in decades of one of the most extraordinary and singular figures in American jurisprudence: a small-time lawyer--with one year of law school--who joined FDR's administration and became, in rapid succession, U.S. Solicitor General, Attorney General, and Supreme Court Justice. Robert H. Jackson's most enduring legacy, however, may have been his work as chief U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremberg war crimes trial. Distinguished historian G. Edward White offers a compelling portrait of a complex figure who continues to inspire reverence.Discover the meteoric rise of one of the most extraordinary and singular figures in American jurisprudence, Robert H. Jackson, from self-trained lawyer to influential Supreme Court Justice and chief U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials, in this compelling new biography.Until he joined the U.S. government in 1934, Robert H. Jackson had been a lawyer in private practice in Upstate New York who was admitted to the bar without going to college and after completing only one year of law school. Once part of FDR's administration, Jackson became, in rapid succession, United States Solicitor General and United States Attorney General, where he successfully defended New Deal programs before the Supreme Court, including the legality of Lend Lease, which helped the U.S. give war supplies to England in exchange for grants of territory and harbors. Jackson played a central role in formulating the arguments justifying a number of initiatives on constitutional grounds and in drafting the policy statements that accompanied them. In 1941, FDR nominated him to be Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, on which he served until his death in 1954, only months after his adding his vote to the unanimous decision inBrown V. Board of Education.It was a meteoric rise for someone from outside the elite, and essentially self-trained. That didn't stop Jackson from becoming one of the most influential and independent-mindedlƒ!