Stephen Budiansky's biography of Oliver Wendell Holmes is that rare history that balances intellectual development with human experience. The relevance of the work is slow-building, but crystallizes in striking ways. This is no surprise to anyone familiar with Holmes's era or opinions, but it is a refreshing approach to the often convoluted history of his time. Much has been said about Holmes, but amazingly little has been written of him. That distinction is worthy of our time and of the Justice himself.

Adm. Rickover once distilled a sage old maxim of the 19th century: "Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people." No pithy comment can summarize Holmes's approach to life, but this is close. It was the ongoing conversation, or argument, with another human being that truly mattered. He was, if nothing else, a social being. That focus anchors the work, marrying the personal and the intellectual and driving home the importance of Holmes's life and words for today. It commends the story not just to Holmes's time but transcends his life to show how those ideas influenced others and changed our world.

A Holmes biography runs the risk of overstuffing. He lived during some of the most tumultuous and revolutionary periods of American history. His opinions (officially written at least) have been taught and studied since the vague beginnings of the information age. Budianksy manages this considerable historiography with a keen eye that belies great effort. The epilogue is particularly deft in this regard. There's difficult work at play under the surface, immersing us in Holmes, but it's rarely belabored; a conversation in the background, particularly if you peek into the notes. Some might consider Holmes a dry subject simply because so much has already been said. But I found Budiansky a welcome guide and an excellent commentator himself.

Budianksy also provides excellent insight into Holmes's wartime experiences, subtly connecting these experiences with Holmes's novel (and ironic) general principles. On reflection, what I find most striking is that this effort requires identification of intellectual threads tying together antebellum, reconstruction and post-reconstruction ideas. That has been done many times, but never has it been done so simply without a hit on accuracy or informative value. The concise elegance of Budiansky's work here is marvelous. It sets the stage for growth in Holmes himself as well as the political philosophies and institutions ancillary to the story. This more than anything provides fantastic background commentary on a host of modern topics.

For anyone wondering whether a biography of another old, dead, white Supreme Court Justice is worth their attention, I would recommend the purpose of diverse thought and experience. Holmes's life is a story worth telling now in greater clarity because his ideas appeal outside and across the political spectrum. “The logical method and form flatter that longing for certainty and for repose which is in every human mind," Holmes said, "But certainty generally is illusion, and repose is not the destiny of man.” Our society needs to talk face-to-face more, especially argue more, and avoid the trappings of online life that have buried helpful discord in attention-seeking sham and groupthink dogma. Hearing things you disagree with will make you uncertain, even fearful, but that will make you wiser. Holmes ideas teach that vital piece of wisdom for us. Democracy cannot survive without the free discussion of ideas because none of us, including Holmes and even those of faith, has a certainty of complete answers.