Holmes is the liberal Justice appointed to an archly conservative bench, and the author of the best opinions of the SCOTUS in his day, mostly Dissents. Harold Laski (1893-1950) was a political theorist and a leading British intellectual. Professor of Political Science at the London School of Economics from 1926 until his death in 1950, he was a notorious figure loved and respected by students and colleagues alike. He knew both the great and the good, including Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt. Holmes berated him for trying to be a 'do-gooder'. He was a member of the Labour party and wrote many of its policies, influenced more by Stuart Mill than Marx. Laski was the author of "The Rise of Liberalism; the philosophy of Business Civilization" (1936) which shows that Status was replaced by Contract as the foundation of society and it accelerated the spread of prosperity.
The Letters are edited with erudition, and contain an INDEX of Names, and a Biographical Appendix (alas, omitting 'Holmes' or 'Laski'). ( )