25 Years of Asking Questions: What Makes a Life Matter?
Robert H. Jackson’s journey, from a small-town upbringing in Frewsburg to the Supreme Court and then to Nuremberg, raises enduring questions about leadership, justice, and legacy. Why do we continue to study Jackson today? What makes a life worthy of remembrance? And how does one person’s commitment to principle shape institutions and ideas long after they are gone?
In this program, distinguished legal historian G. Edward White explores these questions through the lens of his acclaimed new biography, Robert H. Jackson: A Life in Judgment. Drawing from Jackson’s personal papers, oral histories, and decades of scholarship, White presents a portrait of the justice who defended New Deal policies, authored landmark opinions such as Barnette, dissented in Korematsu, and served as chief U.S. prosecutor at Nuremberg.
About the Speaker
G. Edward White is the David and Mary Harrison Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law and one of the nation’s most respected scholars of American legal history. A former clerk to Chief Justice Earl Warren, White has authored 20 books, received numerous national awards, including honors from the American Historical Association, the ABA, and the AALS, and is a fellow of both the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the Society of American Historians. His scholarship ranges from constitutional law to the cultural history of American sports, and he has delivered major endowed lectures across the country and abroad.
His new book, Robert H. Jackson: A Life in Judgment, traces Jackson’s extraordinary rise from self-taught country lawyer to Supreme Court justice and chief prosecutor at Nuremberg. It offers fresh insight into Jackson’s independent judicial philosophy, his defense of civil liberties, and the global impact of his work at the International Military Tribunal.
The book will be available for purchase at the program.