Book Review: A Brief Survey of the Jurisdiction and Practice of the Courts of the United States

Abstract

Although I knew the wide popularity of the earlier editions, I approached examination of this little volume with considerable diffidence. I have come to question the value of small books on big problems almost as much as Professor Hays, who has said: "All efforts to state law in a nutshell are failures, because law is basically a thing to be understood rather than merely known." Was there chance of more success in the peculiarly difficult and technical field of federal jurisdiction? My doubts were not lessened by the author's prefatory compliment to the clarity of the new revision of the Federal Judicial Code and his statement that this book was constructed about that revision. For the general value of that striking statutory accomplishment was marred by ambiguities and confusions in draftsmanship which have already required corrective measures. These were of the type which a small generalized treatise might overlook or minimize. Laudatory statements in this vein might suggest the possibility of such a consequence here. But I am bound to say that upon examination the book seems much better than I bad expected and nearly, if not quite, all my doubts have been allayed.