Overview

This book provides a critical introduction to the history and current meaning of the United States' Constitution. It is organised around two themes: Firstly, the US Constitution is old, short, and difficult to amend. These characteristics have made constitutional 'interpretation', especially by the US Supreme Court, the primary mechanism for adapting the Constitution to ever-changing reality. Secondly, the Constitution creates a structure of political opportunities that allows political actors, including political parties, to pursue the preferred policy goals even to the point of altering the very structure of politics. Politics, that is, often gives meaning to the Constitution. Deploying these themes to examine the structure of the national government, federalism, judicial review, and individual rights, the book provides basic information about, and deeper insights into, the way the US constitutional system has developed and what it means today.

Full Product Details

9781841137384

Table of Contents

Reviews

The book is a very appealing introduction to US constitutional thinking for foreign readers, especially those from continental Europe. Unlike many other books on the same topic, it does not deal with all the intricate details and specific normative concepts in a black letter way, but rather provides a birds-eye analysis of the underlying concepts and ways of thinking. The book focuses on interpretation and political structures. This way of looking at the Constitution is typically American, but, generally speaking, very unusual to continental European and in particular to German eyes. The usual black-letter book, thus, tends to give continental Europeans a false impression of what is really going on in the US constitutional debate; it lulls them into believing (erroneously) that the basic way of looking at the Constitution at home and in the US is not all that much different. Therefore, this book is a very much needed, maybe even indispensable addition to the introductions I have so far found on the market. Professor. Dr. Uwe Kischel, LL.M (Yale), Universitat Greifswald, March 2009

Author Information

Mark Tushnet is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. He was President of the Association of American Law Schools in 2003, and in 2002 was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available