About the Author

Akhil Reed Amar is Southmayd Professor of Law at Yale. He is the author of scores of articles on constitutional law and criminal procedure, as well as The Constitution and Criminal Procedure: First Principles (ISBN 0 300 07488 3, pb. #10.95), published by Yale University Press.

Reviews

“Amar takes us on a historical odyssey. . . . [He] offer[s] a striking and original analysis of the political values embodied in the amendments enacted to soothe their concerns. . . . In a rich clause-by-clause analysis, Amar elaborates his thesis. . . . Amar’s stimulating republican interpretation restores the states and the people to their rightful place in the constitutional story.”—James Henretta, New York Times Book Review

“This is a rich book, not only for its sweep and subject, but because Amar delivers a provocative synthesis of textual, historical, and theoretical interpretation in support of his doctrine of refined incorporation. It deserves to be read by scholars and advanced students, as well as lawyers and judges.”—Canadian Journal of Political Science

“Amar’s historical analysis enables the reader to appreciate the countermajoritarian nature of the document over time. . . . He places legal milestones in an understandable perspective.”—Phillip Young Blue, Library Journal

A selection of the History Book Club

Honorable mention in the 1999 Scribes Book Award Competition

Selected to receive a Gavel Award Certificate of Merit in the Book Category in the 1999 Competition for the Media and the Arts, given by the American Bar Association

Honorable Mention in the Legal category for 1998, Association of American Publishers, Professional/Scholarly Publishing Division Annual Awards Competition

“By viewing the Bill of Rights as a document with an evolving meaning shaped by history, and by stressing how the Civil War and Reconstruction transformed the Bill of Rights, Amar has made a major contribution to the history of American liberties.”—Eric Foner, Columbia University

“Akhil Amar is one of the most creative thinkers in the legal academy. Not surprisingly, he has produced the best book ever written about what we call the Bill of Rights. He is especially illuminating about the vast differences between the assumptions as to what these amendments meant in 1789 as against their interpretation in 1868, when the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment expected them to be applied against the states.”—Sanford Levinson, University of Texas, School of Law

“Amar’s argument is nothing short of brilliant: he recasts our understanding of the Bill of Rights in ways that have profound implications. No one presently writing is better able to combine legal and historical analysis.”—Michael Les Benedict, Ohio State University

“Essential reading for anyone who claims to care about the history of liberty in America, from the ACLU to the NRA, from the NAACP to the Federalist Society. Today’s Bill of Rights, Amar shows, owes less to the Founding Fathers of the 1780s and more to the antislavery crusaders of the 1860s—women alongside men, blacks alongside whites—than many of us had realized.”—Nadine Strossen, professor, New York Law School, and national president, American Civil Liberties Union

The author (law, Yale Univ.) reminds us of the impact, flexibility, and timeliness of the Bill of Rights, the constitution within the Constitution that guarantees personal rights and shields individual freedoms from authoritarian encroachment. Amar's historical analysis enables the reader to appreciate the countermajoritarian nature of the document over time. The author's hypothesis seems to be that the Bill of Rights stands as an eternal bulwark against governmental oppression, especially the tyranny of the legislative majority. In this context, the demands of the Anti-Federalists at the 1787 Constitutional Convention for the security of individual rights and the protection of state governments dovetail with the post-Civil War legislation of the Reconstruction Congress intended to stamp out antebellum laws and discriminatory Black Codes. Amar goes to great pains to show how the 14th Amendment forced the states to apply fairly and evenly the freedoms and protections they had so ardently demanded during the post-Revolutionary era. He places legal milestones in an understandable perspective, thus making the reading accessible to a general academic audience.ÄPhillip Young Blue, New York State Supreme Court Criminal Branch Lib., New York