William Howard Taft: The Travails of a Progressive Conservative

In this new biographical study of the only American ever to have been both President and Chief Justice of the United States, Jonathan Lurie reassesses William Howard Taft's multiple careers, which culminated in Taft's election to the presidency in 1908 as the chosen successor to Theodore Roosevelt. By 1912, however, the relationship between Taft and Roosevelt had ruptured. Lurie reexamines the Taft-Roosevelt friendship and concludes that it rested on flimsy ground. He also places Taft in a progressive context, taking Taft's own self-description as "a believer in progressive conservatism" as the starting point. At the end of his biography, Lurie concludes that this label is accurate when applied to Taft.

Author: Jonathan Lurie
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 11/30/2011
Pages: 232
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.04lbs
Size: 9.34h x 6.55w x 0.88d
ISBN: 9780521514217

Review Citation(s):
Choice 06/01/2012

About the Author
Lurie, Jonathan: - Jonathan Lurie is a Professor of History Emeritus and Academic Integrity Officer at Rutgers University, where he has been a member of the history department since 1969. His books include The Chicago Board of Trade, Law and the Nation, Arming Military Justice, Pursuing Military Justice, The Slaughterhouse Cases (co-authored with Ronald Labbe), Military Justice in America and The Chase Court. His fields of interest comprise legal history, military justice, constitutional law and history and the eras of the Civil War and Reconstruction. The book on the Slaughterhouse cases received the Scribes award in 2003 as the best book written on law for that year. Lurie served as a Fulbright Lecturer at Uppsala University Law School in Sweden in 2005, was the Visiting Professor of Law at West Point from 1994 to 1995 and has lectured on several occasions at the United States Supreme Court.