Lysander Spooner Honored by Yale:

Over on Legal History Blog, my Georgetown colleague Dan Ernst heralds the publication of The Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law (Yale Law Library Series in Legal History and Reference) edited by Roger K. Newman. According to the publisher’s description:

This book is the first to gather in a single volume concise biographies of the most eminent men and women in the history of American law. Encompassing a wide range of individuals who have devised, replenished, expounded, and explained law, The Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law presents succinct and lively entries devoted to more than 700 subjects selected for their significant and lasting influence on American law.

It gives me great pleasure to announce that included among “the most eminent men and women in the history of American law” is Lysander Spooner. Although I wrote the entry, I was entirely unaware of the spectacular company in which I was writing, including that of Dan. Here are some more of the pairings of author and subject he provides:

Roger Newman has sent me the final list of authors and topics, which includes many inspired pairings. As one might expect, biographers are here in abundance, including Morton Keller on James M. Beck, William Lasser on Benjamin V. Cohen, Dalia Tsuk Mitchell on Felix Cohen, Ken Gormley on Archibald Cox, Brooks Simpson on U.S. Grant, Mark Tushnet on Thurgood Marshall, John Ferren on Wiley Rutledge, and Dorothy Brown on Mabel Walker Willebrandt. Many matches have interesting jurisprudential, historiographic, or personal dimensions: Gaddis Smith on Dean Acheson, Stephen Presser on Raoul Berger, Harold Hongjuh Koh on Harry A. Blackmun, Steven Calabresi on Robert H. Bork, Clinton Bamberger on Edgar and Jean Cahn, Philip Bobbitt on Guido Calabresi, Bruce Kuklick on John Dewey, Dennis Hutchinson on Phillip Kurland, Linda Greenhouse on Anthony Lewis, Zipporah Wiseman on Soia Mentchikoff, Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Burnita Shelton Matthews, Louis Pollak on Walter Pollak, Mark Graber on Roger Taney, Randy Barnett on Lysander Spooner, James Henretta on Martin Van Buren, and Patricia Wald on J. Skelly Wright.

Sorry for two posts on Spooner in two days, but I think the fact that he was included in this illustrious group is very very cool.