San Antonio College Library

The distinguised constitutional expert reviews key issues and factors pertaining to the evolution of the dominant Presidency and to the consequences for the United States' constitutional government.

What did the U.S. Constitution originally mean, and who has understood its meaning best? Do we look to the intentions of its framers at the Federal Convention of 1787, or to those of its ratifiers in the states? Or should we trust our own judgment in deciding whether the original meaning of the Constitution should still guide its later interpretation? These are the recurring questions in the ongoing process of analyzing and resolving constitutional...

By the time of his retirement in June 2010, the author had become the second longest serving Justice in the history of the Supreme Court. Now he draws upon his more than three decades on the Court, during which he was involved with many of the defining decisions of the modern era, to offer a book articulating not only the need for changes, but also what those improvements should be. This is a call to arms, detailing six specific ways in which the...

"Mark Tushnet has squared the circle by writing a book that is both accessible and highly sophisticated. An admirable achievement that should improve public discourse about the role of the Constitution."--Adrian Vermeule, John H. Watson, Jr., Professor of Law, Harvard Law School. "An outstanding introduction to the many ways that the Constitution shapes American politics, and politics shapes American constitutional law."--Jack M. Balkin, Knight Professor...

Akhil Amar examines the role of search warrants, the status of the exclusionary rule, self-incrimination theory and practice, and a host of Sixth Amendment trial-related rights. Through a close and original analysis of constitutional text, history, structure, and precedent - leavened with a healthy measure of common sense - he challenges conventional wisdom on a broad range of topics. He argues that the exclusion of reliable evidence in criminal trials...

This book explains how the debate over originalism emerged from the interaction of constitutional theory, U.S. Supreme Court decisions, and American political development. Refuting the contention that originalism is a recent concoction of political conservatives like Robert Bork, Johnathan O'Neill asserts that recent appeals to the origin of the Constitution in Supreme Court decisions and commentary, especially by Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence...

A history of the Federal Convention at Philadelphia in 1787 that produced the Constitution of the U.S.

"The framers of the Constitution chose their words carefully when they wrote of a more perfect union--not absolutely perfect, but with room for improvement. Indeed, we no longer operate under the same Constitution as that ratified in 1788, or even the one completed by the Bill of Rights in 1791--because we are no longer the same nation. In The Revolutionary Constitution, David J. Bodenhamer provides a comprehensive new look at America's basic law,...