Table of Contents

Introduction: Do We Want A Living Constitution?
1. Originalism and Its Sins
2. The Common Law
3. Freedom of Speech and the Living Constitution
4. Brown v. Board of Education and Innovation in the Living Constitution
5. Common Ground and Jefferson's Problem
6. Constitutional Amendments and the Living Constitution

About the Author

David A. Strauss is the Gerald Ratner Distinguished Service Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, and one of the nation's leading constitutional law scholars. He has also served as Special Counsel to the United States Senate Judiciary Committee and Assistant Solicitor General of the United States, and argued eighteen cases before the United States Supreme Court. David Strauss is an editor of the Supreme Court Review.

Reviews

"If David Strauss's marvelous book doesn't convince Justice Scalia to accept rather than abhor the idea of a living constitution, nothing will." --William Wargo, The Vermont Bar Journal
"Writing in prose that laymen will find lucid and inviting, Strauss makes the usually fuzzy idea of a living Constitution rigorous and substantive."--Publishers Weekly
"Succinct and elegant"--Steve Chapman, Chicago Tribune
"Strauss keeps a low public profile but legal scholars know him to be a first-class mind. This book, written for the general reader, shows that he is also a master stylist, whose prose is Orwellian in the good sense: clear as a pane of glass."--The New Republic
"Whatever one may think of these issues, it is clear that Strauss has provided a great service to both academics and the general reading public. He has produced a short, accessible, well-written, thoughtful, and incisive defense of living constitutionalism, one which can also serve as a valuable introduction to foundational debates about the nature of constitutional interpretation."--The Law & Politics Book Review
"Timely and important...a novel and creative contribution to the ongoing debate about the nature of the U.S. Constitution, and will influence the dialogue for years to come."--Harvard Law Review
"I regard The Living Constitution to be a tremendous success. It deserves to be widely read by students, lay people, and specialists."--Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews