April 1865: The Month That Saved America.

WINIK, Jay [Ruth Bader Ginsburg].

Item Number: 146274

New York: Harper Collins Publishers , 2001.

First edition of this exceptional perspective on the last days of the Civil War by American historian and best-selling author Jay Winik, from the library of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Octavo, original half cloth, frontispiece of ‘The Peacemakers’ by George P. Healy, illustrated with several pages of photographs and six maps. Association copy, inscribed by the author on the title page to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, “To Ruth & Marty Ginsburg – Whose work echoes the great statesmen of April 1865! Best wishes, Jay.” The recipient, American lawyer and jurist Ruth Bader Ginsburg served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until her death in 2020 and was responsible for some of the most eventful legal decisions of the past half-century. Nominated by President Bill Clinton in 1993 to replace retiring justice Byron White, Ginsburg became the first Jewish woman and the second woman to serve on the Court, after Sandra Day O’Connor. Ginsburg spent much of her legal career as an advocate for gender equality and women’s rights, winning many arguments before the Supreme Court. During her tenure as associate justice of the Supreme Court, Ginsburg received attention for her fiery and passionate dissents that reflected liberal views of the law. She was popularly dubbed “the Notorious R.B.G.”, a moniker she later embraced. She authored several important majority opinions related to gender discrimination, voting rights, and affirmative action in cases such as United States v. Virginia (1996) which struck down the Virginia Military Institute’s male-only admissions policy as violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, Olmstead v. L.C. (1999) in which the Court ruled that mental illness is a form of disability covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services, Inc. (2000) in which the Court held that residents have standing to seek fines for an industrial polluter that affected their interests and that is able to continue doing so. Near fine in a fine dust jacket. Some bumping to the crown and foot of the spine. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box by the Harcourt Bindery.

April 1865 is considered in American history as "the month that the guns of the Civil War finally fell silent." After a war that lasted four years and over 600,000 deaths, the Union saw the surrender of General Robert E. Lee and the assassination of the president just five days later. Government meltdown and coup fears in the North and continued bloodshed in the South followed before agreements finally began. Jay Winik provides a cerebral perspective of the Civil War's final days in 'April 1865,' a gripping narrative and a masterful account of the thirty make-or-break days in the life of the United States.