The World of Benjamin Cardozo

“In The World of Benjamin Cardozo, an entertaining contribution to the literature of Cardozo revisionism, Richard Polenberg combines biographical exploration with a reconstruction of the facts of some of Cardozo’s most salacious cases… By creatively combining biographical and judicial excavation, Polenberg shows us that Cardozo was a hopeless moralist as well, one who was reluctant to second-guess the morals of his age.”—Edward Hower, The New York Times Book Review

“Richard Polenberg’s The World of Benjamin Cardozo is a very impressive, pathbreaking account involving one of the most important judicial figures in American law. Polenberg offers a scrupulously researched, balanced, and yet iconoclastic account. He deals with fundamental areas in which Cardozo is assumed to have made major contributions as a judge. The book does a beautiful job of interweaving biographical details of the life of Cardozo, a confirmed isolate, with his struggle to be detached and scientific about the law… Through its rich sampling of biographical details combined with brief, but still often deep visits to a number of key areas of doctrinal development, this book fleshes out a vital, enduring dilemma about judging. It is original and important, and its style is wonderfully accessible to an audience beyond lawyers, though it ought to have a very broad readership among those educated in law… The book is unusually well-written and provocative in the very best sense.”—Aviam Soifer, Boston College Law School