Image descriptions:
Image one: Constitution Day
Image two: E-book titled The Law of the Land: A Grand Tour of Our Constitutional Republic (2015) - synopsis: While we may be united under one Constitution, separate and distinct states remain, each with its own constitution and culture. Geographic idiosyncrasies add more than just local character. Regional understandings of law and justice have shaped and reshaped our nation throughout history. In The Law of the Land, renowned legal scholar Akhil Reed Amar illustrates how geography, federalism, and regionalism have influenced some of the biggest questions in American constitutional law.
Image three: E-book titled The Framers' Coup: The Making of the United States Constitution (2016) - synopsis: Americans revere their Constitution. However, most of us are unaware how tumultuous and improbable the drafting and ratification processes were. As Benjamin Franklin keenly observed, any assembly of men bring with them “all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views.” One need not deny that the Framers had good intentions in order to believe that they also had interests. Based on prodigious research and told largely through the voices of the participants, Michael Klarman’s The Framers’ Coup narrates how the Framers’ clashing interests shaped the Constitution—and American history itself.
Image four: E-book titled What Would Madison Do?: The Father of the Constitution Meets Modern American Politics (2015) - synopsis: What would the father of the Constitution think of contemporary developments in American politics and public policy? Constitutional scholars have long debated whether the American political system, which was so influenced by the thinking of James Madison, has in fact grown outmoded. But if Madison himself could peer at the present, what would he think of the state of key political institutions that he helped originate and the government policies that they produce? In What Would Madison Do?, ten prominent scholars explore the contemporary performance of Madison's constitutional legacy and how much would have surprised him.
Image five: E-book titled Athens, Rome, and England: America's Constitutional Heritage (2014) - synopsis: Political scientist and legal scholar Matthew A. Pauley fills in the blanks in our understanding of the development of the U.S. Constitution by chronicling the three most important influences on the American constitutional experience: ancient Greece, ancient Rome, and England. Pauley’s masterful historical survey sheds new light on our system of representative democracy, our court structure, and our traditions of law—civil and criminal, public and private.
