FDR and Chief Justice Hughes - The President, the Supreme Court, and the Epic Battle Over the New Deal

John Jay was a central figure in the early history of the American Republic. A New York lawyer, born in 1745, Jay served his country with the greatest distinction, and was one of the most influential of its Founding Fathers. In this first full-length biography of John Jay in almost 70 years, Walter Stahr brings Jay vividly to life, setting his astonishing career against the background of the American Revolution.

Drawing on substantial new material, Walter Stahr has written a full and highly readable portrait of both the public and private man. It is the story not only of John Jay himself, the most prominent native-born New Yorker of the eighteenth century, but also of his engaging and intelligent wife, Sarah, who accompanied her husband on his wartime diplomatic missions. This lively and compelling biography presents Jay in the light he deserves: as a major Founding Father, a true national hero, and a leading architect of America's future.

Praise for the print edition of JOHN JAY:

“Walter Stahr’s even-handed account, the first big biography of Jay in decades, is riveting on the matter of negotiating tactics, as practiced by Adams, Jay and Franklin.”
— The Economist

“Walter Stahr writes with great insight, and this wonderful book should restore Jay’s place in the pantheon of our great Founding Fathers.”
—Walter Isaacson, author of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life and Steve Jobs

“Stahr’s Jay is a welcome and worthy biography.”
— The Sunday Times (London)

“Walter Stahr, an independent scholar, has written a fascinating, learned and beautifully written biography of a major figure of the American Revolution, one who has been too long overlooked. Mr. Stahr deserves consideration for the Pulitzer Prize for biography.”
— Washington Times

“Mr. Stahr is a superlative biographer, reporting the criticisms made of his subject and then showing why, in most cases, Jay knew better than his contemporary critics or later historians.”
— New York Sun

“Until Walter Stahr’s splendid new biography appeared, the most recent biography of Jay was Frank Monaghan’s John Jay: Defender of Liberty against Kings and Peoples (1935), published some seven decades ago.”
— Journal of American History

“Walter Stahr’s excellent new biography should re-establish Jay’s standing as one of America’s great statesmen. It portrays Jay’s life with a balance and command of the material worthy of the subject.”
— Weekly Standard

“Stahr . . . captures both his subject’s seriousness and his thoughtful, affectionate side as son, husband, father and friend. In humanizing Jay, Stahr makes him an appealing figure accessible to a large readership and places Jay once again in the company of America’s greatest statesmen, where he unquestionably belongs.”
— Publishers Weekly

“Stahr has succeeded splendidly in his aim of recovering the reputation of John Jay as a major founder. His biography is a reliable and clearly written account [and] makes a persuasive case for including Jay among the first rank of Revolutionary leaders.”
— Gordon S. Wood in The New York Review of Books

“Walter Stahr has not only given us a meticulous study of the life of John Jay, but one very much written in the spirit of the man. It is thorough, fair, consistently intelligent, and presented with the most scrupulous accuracy.”
— Ron Chernow, author of Alexander Hamilton

AUTHOR BIO:
Walter Stahr was born in Massachusetts, grew up in Southern California, and attended the Phillips Exeter Academy, Stanford University and Harvard Law School. After a twenty-five year career as a lawyer he returned to his first love, American history, to research and write a biography of John Jay. Stahr lives, with his wife Masami and two children, in Exeter, New Hampshire, and Newport Beach, California. His website is walterstahr.com.

Robert Boyer was a consummate Canadian, whose long career can be measured by words. An author, journalist, researcher, editor, printer, and public speaker, Boyer's professional life began at the age of 19 when he became a newspaper editor, and continued through the publication of his twelfth book at the age of 88. He was also a church organist, a member of the Ontario Legislature for seventeen years, and the first vice-chairman of Ontario Hydro.

A Canadian Shield Book Published by Dundurn in partnership with Canadian Shield Communications Corporation.

Warren Christopher is that rarest of Washington personalities: a wise and witty public servant once described by the Washington Post as "the antithesis of the glitz-hungry, self-aggrandizing, corner-cutting political figures who dominate Washington today." In this memoir, the man whose sage counsel and sometimes parodied discretion brought him to the right hand of mayors, governors, and presidents, shares his personal recollections and impressions of leaders and events that shaped the second half of the twentieth century.

Writing in tightly crafted, often self-effacing prose, Christopher chronicles how he left the privacy of life at a premier law firm to heed calls to public service from Supreme Court justice William O. Douglas, Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley, and California governor Edmund "Pat" Brown -- as well as presidents Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton. Throughout his career, Christopher faced diverse challenges: he advised a president on whether to dispatch federal troops to quell civil disturbances; led negotiations to free American hostages in Iran; investigated a major city's police force gone awry; and helped cope with Yitzhak Rabin's assassination.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER    
I.   INTRODUCTION
II.   THE PRINCIPLES OF THE REVOLUTION
III.   CHURCH AND STATE
IV.   THE ERA OF STAGNATION
V.   SIGNS OF CHANGE
VI.   BURKE
VII.   THE FOUNDATIONS OF ECONOMIC LIBERALISM

“An intimate portrait of Lincoln, so well-drawn that he seems to come alive on the page.”
—Charleston Post & Courier

Lincoln’s Men by Daniel Mark Epstein offers a fascinating close-up view of the Abraham Lincoln White House through the eyes of Lincoln’s three personal secretaries: John Nicolay, William Stoddard, and John Hay. Like Doris Kearns Goodwin’s monumental New York Times bestseller, Team of Rivals, Epstein’s Lincoln’s Men sheds a new light on the 16^th U.S. president—his brilliance and vision in a time of national turmoil and Civil War—by focusing on his relationships with the men who worked closely by his side. USA Today writes, “This is not your typical work of history. Epstein, a poet, employs a dreamy, novelistic tone in describing these young men and their tormented boss.”

August 12, 2002 would have marked the 100th birthday of one of Western Canada's most beloved, exemplary, idiosyncratic and admired citizens, the Hon. J.W. Grant MacEwan. A Century of Grant MacEwan: Selected Writings is published to mark the centenary of the author's birth, and showcases the writing achievements of this remarkable man. From his first foray into historical writing, The Sodbusters (1948), to Watershed: Reflections on Water (2000), this collection offers a fascinating selection drawn from the nearly fifty books that won him a place in hearts and on bookshelves across the Canadian West.

From perilous Chilcotin–Klondike cattle drives to the creation of a short-lived republic within the boundaries of Manitoba, A Century of Grant MacEwan is MacEwan at his finest, preserving little-known or neglected nuggets of the past for future generations to read and remember. Through his writing, MacEwan shows us our history.