Christopher L. (laflamme02) reviewed on 3/2/2011

I picked up this book in the hopes of learning more about the nascent legal system during the formative years after the revolution. What I got, however, was a little more narrow in scope than I was expecting. This book is a myopic academic knife focusing at all times on the Dred Scott Case but going in EXTREME detail about the legal and political climates and events surrounding the case itself. If ever there was a thorough historical effort to mine out all details, large and small, related to an event it is this book. It is a bit of a juggernaut as well, and I would be lying if I said I didn't have to force myself to read much of it.

However, taken in it's entirety and not losing the forest for the trees, as it were, this book gives a very good account of how Judge Taney's flawed legal decision reverberated and affected he nation. Fehrenbacher also does a very good job for setting the political and legal stage for the case and presents issues such as the Fugitive-Slave Act, MO Territory, the wild west, disparate and contentious attitudes of northerners & southerners, Lincoln / Douglas, and myriad other events and people in relation to this single most defining and important case.

Not for the faint of historical heart but very good at what it sets out to do.

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