A Constitution of Many Minds: Why the Founding Document Doesn't Mean What It Meant Before

Awards:   Winner of Association of American Publishers Award for Best Professional/Scholarly Book in Law & Legal Studies 2009 (United States) Winner of PROSE Awards: Law and Legal Studies 2009 Winner of PROSE Awards: Law and Legal Studies 2009.
Author:   Cass R. Sunstein
Publisher:   Princeton University Press
ISBN:  

9780691152424


Pages:   240
Publication Date:   04 September 2011
Format:   Paperback
Availability:   Temporarily unavailable   Availability explained
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A Constitution of Many Minds: Why the Founding Document Doesn't Mean What It Meant Before


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Awards

  • Winner of Association of American Publishers Award for Best Professional/Scholarly Book in Law & Legal Studies 2009 (United States)
  • Winner of PROSE Awards: Law and Legal Studies 2009
  • Winner of PROSE Awards: Law and Legal Studies 2009.

Overview

"The future of the U.S. Supreme Court hangs in the balance like never before. Will conservatives or liberals succeed in remaking the court in their own image? In A Constitution of Many Minds, acclaimed law scholar Cass Sunstein proposes a bold new way of interpreting the Constitution, one that respects the Constitution's text and history but also refuses to view the document as frozen in time. Exploring hot-button issues ranging from presidential power to same-sex relations to gun rights, Sunstein shows how the meaning of the Constitution is reestablished in every generation as new social commitments and ideas compel us to reassess our fundamental beliefs. He focuses on three approaches to the Constitution--traditionalism, which grounds the document's meaning in long-standing social practices, not necessarily in the views of the founding generation; populism, which insists that judges should respect contemporary public opinion; and cosmopolitanism, which looks at how foreign courts address constitutional questions, and which suggests that the meaning of the Constitution turns on what other nations do. Sunstein demonstrates that in all three contexts a ""many minds"" argument is at work--put simply, better decisions result when many points of view are considered. He makes sense of the intense debates surrounding these approaches, revealing their strengths and weaknesses, and sketches the contexts in which each provides a legitimate basis for interpreting the Constitution today. This book illuminates the underpinnings of constitutionalism itself, and shows that ours is indeed a Constitution, not of any particular generation, but of many minds."

Full Product Details

Author:   Cass R. Sunstein
Publisher:   Princeton University Press
Imprint:   Princeton University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 1.50cm , Length: 23.50cm
Weight:   0.340kg
ISBN:  

9780691152424


ISBN 10:   069115242
Pages:   240
Publication Date:   04 September 2011
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Tertiary & Higher Education ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Temporarily unavailable   Availability explained
The supplier advises that this item is temporarily unavailable. It will be ordered for you and placed on backorder. Once it does come back in stock, we will ship it out to you.
Language:   English

Table of Contents

Preface ix Introduction: Jefferson's Revenge 1 Part I. Preliminaries 17 Chapter 1. There Is Nothing That Interpretation Just Is 19 Part II. Traditionalism 33 Chapter 2. Burkean Minimalism 35 Chapter 3. Rationalists vs. Burkeans 60 Chapter 4. Due Process Traditionalism 93 Part III. Populism 123 Chapter 5. Backlash's Travels 125 Chapter 6. Public Opinion and Social Consequences 140 Chapter 7. Public Opinion and Judicial Humility 165 Part IV. Cosmopolitanism 185 Chapter 8. What Other Nations Do 187 Afterword 210 Acknowledgments 217 Index 219

Reviews

We would do well to have more thinkers around like Sunstein, and better yet to have more of them on the Supreme Court. -- Leonard H. Becker, DC Lawyer Magazine


Applying ... insights to the field of constitutional law, the book develops, in elegant and careful prose, a novel collection of arguments within their discipline. The author [has] raised a number of fresh and controversial issues, and, as a result, [his] work is certain to be widely read and much discussed. -- N.W. Barber, Texas Law Review Sunstein has a knack for identifying the operative kernel of complex ideas in a way that allows the reader to see how an unfamiliar concept links seemingly disparate problems. -- Azuz Huq, New York Law Journal We would do well to have more thinkers around like Sunstein, and better yet to have more of them on the Supreme Court. -- Leonard H. Becker, DC Lawyer Magazine


Applying ... insights to the field of constitutional law, the book develops, in elegant and careful prose, a novel collection of arguments within their discipline. The author [has] raised a number of fresh and controversial issues, and, as a result, [his] work is certain to be widely read and much discussed. -- N.W. Barber, Texas Law Review Sunstein has a knack for identifying the operative kernel of complex ideas in a way that allows the reader to see how an unfamiliar concept links seemingly disparate problems. -- Azuz Huq, New York Law Journal We would do well to have more thinkers around like Sunstein, and better yet to have more of them on the Supreme Court. -- Leonard H. Becker, DC Lawyer Magazine


Author Information

"Cass R. Sunstein is currently on leave from his position as the Felix Frankfurter Professor at Harvard Law School to serve as Administrator of the Office of Regulation and Information Policy in the Obama administration. His many books include ""Republic.com 2.0"" (Princeton), ""Worst-Case Scenarios"", and ""Nudge""."

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