The Constitutional Bind

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The Constitutional Bind

Author : Aziz Rana
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022635072X
Total Pages : 818 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (263 download)

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Book Synopsis The Constitutional Bind by : Aziz Rana

Download or read book The Constitutional Bind written by Aziz Rana and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2024 with total page 818 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Americans today are increasingly uneasy about the democratic weaknesses of their Federal Constitution. But for most of living memory that very Constitution has been idealized as near perfect. How could it be that this flawed system came to enjoy such intense veneration? In a striking reinterpretation of the American constitutional past, Aziz Rana connects the spread of a distinctive twentieth century American relationship to its founding document to another development rarely treated alongside it: the rise of the U.S. to global dominance. In the process, he highlights the role of constitutional veneration in shaping the terms of American power abroad, with ultimately transformative effects at home for narratives of nation and ideas of reform. In the process, Rana also explores the remarkably diverse array of movement activists-in Black, Indigenous, feminist, labor, and immigrant politics-that struggled to imagine a very different constitutional horizon, one grounded in equal and effective freedom for all and able to overcome the basic limitations of the consolidating legal-political system. These voices of opposition, including to the Constitution itself, have overwhelmingly been excised from constitutional memory. And yet they offer essential insights for making sense of our present difficulties, in which Americans find themselves bereft of the constitutional sureties that have long shaped collective life"--

The Two Faces of American Freedom

Author : Aziz Rana
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674266552
Total Pages : 428 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (742 download)

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Book Synopsis The Two Faces of American Freedom by : Aziz Rana

Download or read book The Two Faces of American Freedom written by Aziz Rana and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2014-04-07 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Two Faces of American Freedom boldly reinterprets the American political tradition from the colonial period to modern times, placing issues of race relations, immigration, and presidentialism in the context of shifting notions of empire and citizenship. Today, while the U.S. enjoys tremendous military and economic power, citizens are increasingly insulated from everyday decision-making. This was not always the case. America, Aziz Rana argues, began as a settler society grounded in an ideal of freedom as the exercise of continuous self-rule—one that joined direct political participation with economic independence. However, this vision of freedom was politically bound to the subordination of marginalized groups, especially slaves, Native Americans, and women. These practices of liberty and exclusion were not separate currents, but rather two sides of the same coin. However, at crucial moments, social movements sought to imagine freedom without either subordination or empire. By the mid-twentieth century, these efforts failed, resulting in the rise of hierarchical state and corporate institutions. This new framework presented national and economic security as society’s guiding commitments and nurtured a continual extension of America’s global reach. Rana envisions a democratic society that revives settler ideals, but combines them with meaningful inclusion for those currently at the margins of American life.

Our Constitution

Author : Eric Black
Publisher : Westview Press
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.F/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis Our Constitution by : Eric Black

Download or read book Our Constitution written by Eric Black and published by Westview Press. This book was released on 1988-03-21 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is the Constitution a myth? If that question strikes you as blasphemous, you confirm the thesis of this brightly written book, which offers a lively new perspective on an old but timely subject. Eric Black suggests that the Constitution is not at all what we like to think it is—a fixed body of written law that changes incrementally through amendments and court interpretations. Nor is it a road map to equality and justice for all. What is the Constitution, then?Black suggests that it is the holy writ of a national civil religion, in which Americans expect to find the answers to their most troubling questions. It is a mirror that reflects our history, a medium through which each generation turns its values, attitudes, and prejudices into law. Most of all, it is a myth that gains its power from our belief in it.Based on a series of articles written in 1987, this book presents a hypothesis that no historian or legal scholar would have developed. Bringing the irreverence and inquisitiveness of a journalist to the subject, Black has rethought the story of the framing, the addition of the Bill of Rights, and the relationship between our Constitution and our history. The result is a fresh and clear-eyed explanation of how the Constitution has worked and why it still works today.Eric Black has been with the Star Tribune of Minneapolis–St. Paul for ten years as a state reporter, feature writer, and project reporter.

The Three Lives of James Madison

Author : Noah Feldman
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 0679643842
Total Pages : 825 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (796 download)

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Book Synopsis The Three Lives of James Madison by : Noah Feldman

Download or read book The Three Lives of James Madison written by Noah Feldman and published by Random House. This book was released on 2017-10-31 with total page 825 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sweeping reexamination of the Founding Father who transformed the United States in each of his political “lives”—as a revolutionary thinker, partisan political strategist, and president “In order to understand America and its Constitution, it is necessary to understand James Madison.”—Walter Isaacson, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Leonardo da Vinci Over the course of his life, James Madison changed the United States three times: First, he designed the Constitution, led the struggle for its adoption and ratification, then drafted the Bill of Rights. As an older, cannier politician he co-founded the original Republican party, setting the course of American political partisanship. Finally, having pioneered a foreign policy based on economic sanctions, he took the United States into a high-risk conflict, becoming the first wartime president and, despite the odds, winning. Now Noah Feldman offers an intriguing portrait of this elusive genius and the constitutional republic he created—and how both evolved to meet unforeseen challenges. Madison hoped to eradicate partisanship yet found himself giving voice to, and institutionalizing, the political divide. Madison’s lifelong loyalty to Thomas Jefferson led to an irrevocable break with George Washington, hero of the American Revolution. Madison closely collaborated with Alexander Hamilton on the Federalist papers—yet their different visions for the United States left them enemies. Alliances defined Madison, too. The vivacious Dolley Madison used her social and political talents to win her husband new supporters in Washington—and define the diplomatic customs of the capital’s society. Madison’s relationship with James Monroe, a mixture of friendship and rivalry, shaped his presidency and the outcome of the War of 1812. We may be more familiar with other Founding Fathers, but the United States today is in many ways Madisonian in nature. Madison predicted that foreign threats would justify the curtailment of civil liberties. He feared economic inequality and the power of financial markets over politics, believing that government by the people demanded resistance to wealth. Madison was the first Founding Father to recognize the importance of public opinion, and the first to understand that the media could function as a safeguard to liberty. The Three Lives of James Madison is an illuminating biography of the man whose creativity and tenacity gave us America’s distinctive form of government. His collaborations, struggles, and contradictions define the United States to this day.

We Have Not a Government

Author : George William Van Cleve
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022664152X
Total Pages : 411 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (266 download)

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Book Synopsis We Have Not a Government by : George William Van Cleve

Download or read book We Have Not a Government written by George William Van Cleve and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-04-05 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1783, as the Revolutionary War came to a close, Alexander Hamilton resigned in disgust from the Continental Congress after it refused to consider a fundamental reform of the Articles of Confederation. Just four years later, that same government collapsed, and Congress grudgingly agreed to support the 1787 Philadelphia Constitutional Convention, which altered the Articles beyond recognition. What occurred during this remarkably brief interval to cause the Confederation to lose public confidence and inspire Americans to replace it with a dramatically more flexible and powerful government? We Have Not a Government is the story of this contentious moment in American history. In George William Van Cleve’s book, we encounter a sharply divided America. The Confederation faced massive war debts with virtually no authority to compel its members to pay them. It experienced punishing trade restrictions and strong resistance to American territorial expansion from powerful European governments. Bitter sectional divisions that deadlocked the Continental Congress arose from exploding western settlement. And a deep, long-lasting recession led to sharp controversies and social unrest across the country amid roiling debates over greatly increased taxes, debt relief, and paper money. Van Cleve shows how these remarkable stresses transformed the Confederation into a stalemate government and eventually led previously conflicting states, sections, and interest groups to advocate for a union powerful enough to govern a continental empire. Touching on the stories of a wide-ranging cast of characters—including John Adams, Patrick Henry, Daniel Shays, George Washington, and Thayendanegea—Van Cleve makes clear that it was the Confederation’s failures that created a political crisis and led to the 1787 Constitution. Clearly argued and superbly written, We Have Not a Government is a must-read history of this crucial period in our nation’s early life.

Idaho's Constitution

Author : Dennis C. Colson
Publisher : Caxton Press
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 346 pages
Book Rating : 4.F/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis Idaho's Constitution by : Dennis C. Colson

Download or read book Idaho's Constitution written by Dennis C. Colson and published by Caxton Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Distributed by the University of Nebraska Press for the University of Idaho Press This revised edition of Dennis Colson's book presents a more accessible view to a new generation of students and legislators, many of whom are unfamiliar with Idaho's tumultuous beginnings. Idaho's Constitution opens a door for the reader into the political struggle and turmoil of a century ago, but also the spirit of compromise and common purpose that conquered the divisions they faced.

No Treason (Volume 1)

Author : Lysander Spooner
Publisher : Read Books Ltd
ISBN 13 : 1447488903
Total Pages : 70 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (474 download)

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Book Synopsis No Treason (Volume 1) by : Lysander Spooner

Download or read book No Treason (Volume 1) written by Lysander Spooner and published by Read Books Ltd. This book was released on 2013-03-05 with total page 70 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1870, this essay by the American anarchist and political philosopher Lysander Spooner is here reproduced. Described by Murray Rothbard as "the greatest case for anarchist political philosophy ever written", Spooner's lengthy essay is still referenced by anarchists and philosophers today. In it, he argues that the American Civil War violated the US Constitution, thus rendering it null and void. An indispensable read for political historians both amateur and professional alike. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Democracy Against Domination

Author : K. Sabeel Rahman
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 019046853X
Total Pages : 257 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (94 download)

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Book Synopsis Democracy Against Domination by : K. Sabeel Rahman

Download or read book Democracy Against Domination written by K. Sabeel Rahman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2008, the collapse of the US financial system plunged the economy into the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. In its aftermath, the financial crisis pushed to the forefront fundamental moral and institutional questions about how we govern the modern economy. What are the values that economic policy ought to prioritize? What institutions do we trust to govern complex economic dynamics? Much of popular and academic debate revolves around two competing approaches to these fundamental questions: laissez-faire defenses of self-correcting and welfare-enhancing markets on the one hand, and managerialist turns to the role of insulated, expert regulation in mitigating risks and promoting growth on the other. In Democracy Against Domination, K. Sabeel Rahman offers an alternative vision for how we should govern the modern economy in a democratic society. Drawing on a rich tradition of economic reform rooted in the thought and reform politics of early twentieth century progressives like John Dewey and Louis Brandeis, Rahman argues that the fundamental moral challenge of economic governance today is two-fold: first, to counteract the threats of economic domination whether in the form of corporate power or inequitable markets; and second, to do so by expanding the capacity of citizens themselves to exercise real political power in economic policymaking. This normative framework in turn suggests a very different way of understanding and addressing major economic governance issues of the post-crisis era, from the challenge of too-big-to-fail financial firms, to the dangers of regulatory capture and regulatory reform.

The Health Care Case

Author : Nathaniel Persily
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0199301050
Total Pages : 401 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (993 download)

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Book Synopsis The Health Care Case by : Nathaniel Persily

Download or read book The Health Care Case written by Nathaniel Persily and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2013-07-04 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Supreme Court's decision in the Health Care Case, NFIB v. Sebelius, gripped the nation's attention during the spring of 2012. This volume gathers together reactions to the decision from an ideologically diverse selection of the nation's leading scholars of constitutional, administrative, and health law.

The Color Bind

Author : Erica Gabrielle Foldy
Publisher : Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN 13 : 1610448219
Total Pages : 217 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (14 download)

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Book Synopsis The Color Bind by : Erica Gabrielle Foldy

Download or read book The Color Bind written by Erica Gabrielle Foldy and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 2014-02-28 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the 1960s, the dominant model for fostering diversity and inclusion in the United States has been the “color blind” approach, which emphasizes similarity and assimilation and insists that people should be understood as individuals, not as members of racial or cultural groups. This approach is especially prevalent in the workplace, where discussions about race and ethnicity are considered taboo. Yet, as widespread as “color blindness” has become, many studies show that the practice has damaging repercussions, including reinforcing the existing racial hierarchy by ignoring the significance of racism and discrimination. In The Color Bind, workplace experts Erica Foldy and Tamara Buckley investigate race relations in office settings, looking at how both color blindness and what they call “color cognizance” have profound effects on the ways coworkers think and interact with each other. Based on an intensive two-and-a-half-year study of employees at a child welfare agency, The Color Bind shows how color cognizance—the practice of recognizing the profound impact of race and ethnicity on life experiences while affirming the importance of racial diversity—can help workers move beyond silence on the issue of race toward more inclusive workplace practices. Drawing from existing psychological and sociological research that demonstrates the success of color-cognizant approaches in dyads, workgroups and organizations, Foldy and Buckley analyzed the behavior of work teams within a child protection agency. The behaviors of three teams in particular reveal the factors that enable color cognizance to flourish. While two of the teams largely avoided explicitly discussing race, one group, “Team North,” openly talked about race and ethnicity in team meetings. By acknowledging these differences when discussing how to work with their clients and with each other, the members of Team North were able to dig into challenges related to race and culture instead of avoiding them. The key to achieving color cognizance within the group was twofold: It required both the presence of at least a few members who were already color cognizant, as well as an environment in which all team members felt relatively safe and behaved in ways that strengthened learning, including productively resolving conflict and reflecting on their practice. The Color Bind provides a useful lens for policy makers, researchers and practitioners pursuing in a wide variety of goals, from addressing racial disparities in health and education to creating diverse and inclusive organizations to providing culturally competent services to clients and customers. By foregrounding open conversations about race and ethnicity, Foldy and Buckley show that institutions can transcend the color bind in order to better acknowledge and reflect the diverse populations they serve.

The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution

Author : Joseph Fishkin
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 067498062X
Total Pages : 641 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (749 download)

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Book Synopsis The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution by : Joseph Fishkin

Download or read book The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution written by Joseph Fishkin and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2022-01-11 with total page 641 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bold call to reclaim an American tradition that argues the Constitution imposes a duty on government to fight oligarchy and ensure broadly shared wealth. Oligarchy is a threat to the American republic. When too much economic and political power is concentrated in too few hands, we risk losing the Òrepublican form of governmentÓ the Constitution requires. Today, courts enforce the Constitution as if it has almost nothing to say about this threat. But as Joseph Fishkin and William Forbath show in this revolutionary retelling of constitutional history, a commitment to prevent oligarchy once stood at the center of a robust tradition in American political and constitutional thought. Fishkin and Forbath demonstrate that reformers, legislators, and even judges working in this Òdemocracy of opportunityÓ tradition understood that the Constitution imposes a duty on legislatures to thwart oligarchy and promote a broad distribution of wealth and political power. These ideas led Jacksonians to fight special economic privileges for the few, Populists to try to break up monopoly power, and Progressives to fight for the constitutional right to form a union. During Reconstruction, Radical Republicans argued in this tradition that racial equality required breaking up the oligarchy of slave power and distributing wealth and opportunity to former slaves and their descendants. President Franklin Roosevelt and the New Dealers built their politics around this tradition, winning the fight against the Òeconomic royalistsÓ and Òindustrial despots.Ó But today, as we enter a new Gilded Age, this tradition in progressive American economic and political thought lies dormant. The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution begins the work of recovering it and exploring its profound implications for our deeply unequal society and badly damaged democracy.

Does the Law Morally Bind the Poor, Or, what Good's the Constitution when You Can't Buy a Loaf of Bread?

Author : R. George Wright
Publisher : NYU Press
ISBN 13 : 0814792944
Total Pages : 228 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (147 download)

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Book Synopsis Does the Law Morally Bind the Poor, Or, what Good's the Constitution when You Can't Buy a Loaf of Bread? by : R. George Wright

Download or read book Does the Law Morally Bind the Poor, Or, what Good's the Constitution when You Can't Buy a Loaf of Bread? written by R. George Wright and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 1996-04 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wright (law, Cumberland School of Law, Samford U.) traces the basic legal and political implications of life for the desperately poor, arguing that the law fails to recognize the special circumstances of the severely deprived. He explores the Constitution as it is applied to the poor in our society, and advocates rejecting environmental determinism without holding the poor to unreasonable standards. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Restoring the Lost Constitution

Author : Randy E. Barnett
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691159734
Total Pages : 448 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (911 download)

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Book Synopsis Restoring the Lost Constitution by : Randy E. Barnett

Download or read book Restoring the Lost Constitution written by Randy E. Barnett and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-11-24 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The U.S. Constitution found in school textbooks and under glass in Washington is not the one enforced today by the Supreme Court. In Restoring the Lost Constitution, Randy Barnett argues that since the nation's founding, but especially since the 1930s, the courts have been cutting holes in the original Constitution and its amendments to eliminate the parts that protect liberty from the power of government. From the Commerce Clause, to the Necessary and Proper Clause, to the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, to the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court has rendered each of these provisions toothless. In the process, the written Constitution has been lost. Barnett establishes the original meaning of these lost clauses and offers a practical way to restore them to their central role in constraining government: adopting a "presumption of liberty" to give the benefit of the doubt to citizens when laws restrict their rightful exercises of liberty. He also provides a new, realistic and philosophically rigorous theory of constitutional legitimacy that justifies both interpreting the Constitution according to its original meaning and, where that meaning is vague or open-ended, construing it so as to better protect the rights retained by the people. As clearly argued as it is insightful and provocative, Restoring the Lost Constitution forcefully disputes the conventional wisdom, posing a powerful challenge to which others must now respond. This updated edition features an afterword with further reflections on individual popular sovereignty, originalist interpretation, judicial engagement, and the gravitational force that original meaning has exerted on the Supreme Court in several recent cases.

American Sovereigns

Author : Christian G. Fritz
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1139467174
Total Pages : 441 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (394 download)

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Book Synopsis American Sovereigns by : Christian G. Fritz

Download or read book American Sovereigns written by Christian G. Fritz and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007-10-29 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American Sovereigns: The People and America's Constitutional Tradition Before the Civil War challenges traditional American constitutional history, theory and jurisprudence that sees today's constitutionalism as linked by an unbroken chain to the 1787 Federal constitutional convention. American Sovereigns examines the idea that after the American Revolution, a collectivity - the people - would rule as the sovereign. Heated political controversies within the states and at the national level over what it meant that the people were the sovereign and how that collective sovereign could express its will were not resolved in 1776, in 1787, or prior to the Civil War. The idea of the people as the sovereign both unified and divided Americans in thinking about government and the basis of the Union. Today's constitutionalism is not a natural inheritance, but the product of choices Americans made between shifting understandings about themselves as a collective sovereign.

Machine That Would Go of Itself

Author : Michael G. Kammen
Publisher : Transaction Publishers
ISBN 13 : 1412827760
Total Pages : 582 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (128 download)

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Book Synopsis Machine That Would Go of Itself by : Michael G. Kammen

Download or read book Machine That Would Go of Itself written by Michael G. Kammen and published by Transaction Publishers. This book was released on with total page 582 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

The Constitutional Law of the United States

Author : Westel Woodbury Willoughby
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 1170 pages
Book Rating : 4.A/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis The Constitutional Law of the United States by : Westel Woodbury Willoughby

Download or read book The Constitutional Law of the United States written by Westel Woodbury Willoughby and published by . This book was released on 1910 with total page 1170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The work as a whole is based upon lectures delivered during recent years to the graduate students in political science at the Johns Hopkins University.

The Living Constitution

Author : David A. Strauss
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199703698
Total Pages : 171 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (997 download)

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Book Synopsis The Living Constitution by : David A. Strauss

Download or read book The Living Constitution written by David A. Strauss and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-05-19 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia once remarked that the theory of an evolving, "living" Constitution effectively "rendered the Constitution useless." He wanted a "dead Constitution," he joked, arguing it must be interpreted as the framers originally understood it. In The Living Constitution, leading constitutional scholar David Strauss forcefully argues against the claims of Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Robert Bork, and other "originalists," explaining in clear, jargon-free English how the Constitution can sensibly evolve, without falling into the anything-goes flexibility caricatured by opponents. The living Constitution is not an out-of-touch liberal theory, Strauss further shows, but a mainstream tradition of American jurisprudence--a common-law approach to the Constitution, rooted in the written document but also based on precedent. Each generation has contributed precedents that guide and confine judicial rulings, yet allow us to meet the demands of today, not force us to follow the commands of the long-dead Founders. Strauss explores how judicial decisions adapted the Constitution's text (and contradicted original intent) to produce some of our most profound accomplishments: the end of racial segregation, the expansion of women's rights, and the freedom of speech. By contrast, originalism suffers from fatal flaws: the impossibility of truly divining original intent, the difficulty of adapting eighteenth-century understandings to the modern world, and the pointlessness of chaining ourselves to decisions made centuries ago. David Strauss is one of our leading authorities on Constitutional law--one with practical knowledge as well, having served as Assistant Solicitor General of the United States and argued eighteen cases before the United States Supreme Court. Now he offers a profound new understanding of how the Constitution can remain vital to life in the twenty-first century.