Daniel Holt of the Federal Judicial Center reviews Rehabilitating Lochner for the H-South discussion list. (“An important contribution to the history of constitutional law and the Progressive era. The book is a valuable corrective to the work of historians who might reflexively sympathize with the Progressives and the criticisms of the Lochner decision.”) At H-South’s request, I wrote a short response, and Holt responds to my response here.
The book is also the subject of a more critical book review in Texas Law Review’s “Dicta” on-line journal. Author Jamie Fletcher concedes that the book is “beautifully written,” but concludes that I ultimately failed in what he asserts are my normative goals. Given that I actually disagree with many of the positions that Fletcher attributes to me (such as believing that “libertarianism is the only legitimate theory of constitutionalism”–I doubt it’s even a legitimate interpretive theory for the American Constitution) and certainly didn’t advocate these positions in the book, I happily plead guilty to failing to persuade readers on those points.
Comments are closed.