This book is a collection of comprehensive background essays coupled with carefully edited Supreme Court case excerpts designed to explore constitutional law and the role of the Supreme Court in its development and interpretation. Well-grounded in both theory and politics, the book endeavors to heighten students’ understanding of this critical part of the American political system. NEW TO THE 19th EDITION • An account of the recent Supreme Court transitions, including the Biden Court commission, the appointment of Ketanji Brown Jackson, and the heightened political and ethical difficulties facing the Court. • Five new cases carefully edited and excerpted, including Minor v. Happersett (1875) on gender and voting rights, Trump v. Anderson (2024) on access to the ballot, Carson v. Makin (2022) on religious freedom, New York Rifle & Pistol Assn. v. Bruen (2023) on Second Amendment rights, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2023) on abortion rights, and Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, together with Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina on affirmative action. • Twenty-one new cases discussed in chapter essays. • Tips on reading a Supreme Court decision remains as a box in Chapter One.

This updated and expanded second edition of the successful Constitutions Compared handbook provides a user-friendly introduction to comparative constitutional law. The book covers the constitutional systems of the US, the UK, Germany, France, and the Netherlands. It is a helpful guide for students who are exploring comparative constitutional law, and it is a useful foundation for more advanced graduate-level courses. The book's comparative approach is thematic. For each area of constitutional law, a general introduction and a comparative overview is provided, which is then followed by more detailed country chapters on that specific area. The themes addressed are: origins and main features of constitutions * federalism, unitarism, and decentralization * parliaments and lawmaking * governments, their parliaments, and their heads of state * judicial review and human rights. In addition, the book discusses the constitutional impact of the EU, the system of human-rights protection under the European Convention on Human Rights, and the interaction between the EU, European human rights, and national constitutions. The book includes a table giving an overview of the systems discussed, a glossary, and an expanded selection of freshly translated, important provisions from national constitutions and international treaties.

The study of legal history has a broad application that extends well beyond the interests of legal historians. An attorney arguing a case today may need to cite cases that are decades or even centuries old, and historians studying political or cultural history often encounter legal issues that affect their main subjects. Both groups need to understand the laws and legal practices of past eras. This essential reference is intended for the many nonspecialists who need to enter this arcane and often tricky area of research.

Originally published in 1984, State Apparatus contributes to the debate on the theory of the state through posing questions regarding the state’s form, function, and apparatus. The book begins by setting out the theoretical and methodological problems and reviewing the various Conservative, Liberal and Marxist theories in light of these. It discusses state activity, using specific case studies to clearly illustrate key points, such as the development of welfare systems in North America and Western Europe. It also explores the use of language under the state, the role of the legal apparatus within a capitalist system, and the "local state". The book concludes with a discussion of democracy and the crisis of legitimacy, and the issue of justice and the state. State Apparatus is a detailed and comprehensive text, ideal for those with an interest in the history, theory, form, and function of the state.

..". sophisticated, provocative, and thoroughly documented.... Strongly recommended... " -- Choice ..". a welcome addition to the literature on this contentious issue." -- Journal of Communication "This book does an excellent job of portraying the complexity of the legal and philosophical debates among women about the status and effects of pornography, and it is an important interdisciplinary scholarly contribution for that reason." -- Signs In an attempt to advance our society's debate on pornography beyond the current political and legal stalemate, these essays examine explicit portrayals of violence in pornography from multidisciplinary perspectives: history, literary criticism, religious studies, ethics, political science, film studies, law, and psychology.

Dred Scott and the Problem of Constitutional Evil , first published in 2006, concerns what is entailed by pledging allegiance to a constitutional text and tradition saturated with concessions to evil. The Constitution of the United States was originally understood as an effort to mediate controversies between persons who disputed fundamental values, and did not offer a vision of the good society. In order to form a 'more perfect union' with slaveholders, late-eighteenth-century citizens fashioned a constitution that plainly compelled some injustices and was silent or ambiguous on other questions of fundamental right. This constitutional relationship could survive only as long as a bisectional consensus was required to resolve all constitutional questions not settled in 1787. Dred Scott challenges persons committed to human freedom to determine whether antislavery northerners should have provided more accommodations for slavery than were constitutionally strictly necessary or risked the enormous destruction of life and property that preceded Lincoln's new birth of freedom.