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The Bill of Rights: Creation and Reconstruction
by: Akhil Reed Amar

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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 342
EAN: 9780300082777
ISBN: 0300082770
Label: Yale University Press
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 432
Publication Date: April 01, 2000
Publisher: Yale University Press
Sales Rank: 39302
Studio: Yale University Press

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Editorial Review:

Product Description:
A leading scholar of constitutional law delivers an incisive and brilliant new account of the Bill of Rights and explodes conventional wisdom about our most basic charter of liberty. Akhil Reed Amar not only illuminates the text, structure, and history of the 1789 Bill but also argues that its present character owes more to antislavery activists of the Reconstruction era than to the Founding Fathers who created the Bill.

Amazon.com Review:
'The Bill of Rights stands as the high temple of our constitutional order--America's Parthenon--and yet we lack a clear view of it,' Akhil Reed Amar writes in his introduction to The Bill of Rights. 'Instead of being studied holistically, the Bill has been broken up ... with each segment examined in isolation.' With The Bill of Rights, Amar aims to put the pieces back together and take a longer view of a document few Americans truly understand. Part history of the Bill, part analysis of what the Founding Fathers' intentions really were, this book provides a unique interpretation of the Constitution. It is Amar's hypothesis that, contrary to popular belief, the Bill of Rights was not originally constructed to protect the minority against the majority, but rather to empower popular majorities. It wasn't until 19th-century post-Civil War reconstruction and the introduction of the 14th Amendment that the notion of individual rights took hold. Prior to that, the various amendments to the Constitution that make up the Bill of Rights were more about the structure of government and designed to protect citizens against a self-interested regime. Yet so great has been the impact of the 14th Amendment on modern legal thought that the Bill's original intentions have almost been forgotten.

Through skillful interpretation and solid research, Amar both reconstructs the original thinking of the Founding Fathers and chronicles the radical changes that have occurred since the inclusion of the 14th Amendment in the Bill of Rights. The results make for provocative reading no matter where you stand on the political spectrum.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- FANTASTIC!!!
I saw Amar on PBS, read his book on the history of the Constitution, and was thus driven to read The Bill of Rights. Being neither an attorney nor historian, I still found this to be an excellent read. I suspect that Amar could craft a listing a postal zip codes into an enthralling book. Of course, the creation of constitutional law is a topic that sells itself (at least to me)... He uses a textual analysis. At times, it seemed that he made his point several pages earlier. Most of the time that I read this piece, I sat in front of Google and typed in a smattering of his plethora of referenced facts. The focus of his discussion is on the first 10 adopted amendments and how the 14th amendment then modified each. He mentions the others briefly. Amar might have cited books, newspapers, more speeches that would help the reader better appreciate the zeitgeist of the time and how it affected the framers of 1 - ... Read More

Rating:

- Understanding the Bill of Rights
The The Bill of Rights by Akhil Reed Amar takes an original look at the Ten Amendments to the United States Constitution that became known as the Bill of Rights. Amar, a professor at Yale University Law School, is one of the most respected constitutional scholars in the country.

His study of the famed document brings him to conclusions that have previously been ignored or unheard of. The main thesis, that the Amendments were originally designed to protect the majority, rather than the rights of individuals and minorities, is not a common view, but he has substantial evidence and research to support this conclusion.

A main focus in the book is the difference in the Bill of Rights before and after the era of Reconstruction and the addition of the Fourteenth Amendment. The role of Anti-federalism, which is a main contributor to the first Ten Amendments, is explained and elaborated on, ... Read More

Rating:

- Great, except Amar doesn't quite understand his own work...
...where the 2nd Amendment is concerned!

First, let me state that the book is an EXCELLENT piece of work for all the reasons stated by others. Buy it.

But:

Amar is a definate Liberal in the modern sense. He doesn't seem to LIKE where his research took him with regards the right to arms.

Towards the very end, he talks weakly about how "well yeah, maybe we DO have a personal right to arms - muzzleloaders such as circa 1792..." or words to that effect.

Sigh. Sorry professor, but you should have looked into the state of arms development circa 1868 when the 14th passed. The Gatling Gun had been invented in 1862. The North was fielding whole regiments armed with 15-shot (high capacity anyone?) rifles. At Gettysburg 2,000ish crack Union cavalry established a "defensive beachhead" early in the fight, holding off many times their number of Southerners ... Read More

Rating:

- A Sound Overview of the Bill of Rights and Reconstruction Amendments
~The Bill of Rights: Creation and Reconstruction~ is an informative historical exposition of the Bill of Rights and the rich republican tradition animating these protections from the impetus of the American republic. The Bill of Rights (specifically the first eight amendments thereof) are often misunderstood as it was not a positive grant of rights to the people, but it was rather a negative upon the federal government exercising restrictions upon generally-accepted common law protections, hence the phraseology "Congress shall make no law..." in the First Amendment.

When I studied constitutional law in college, I found this book to be valuable for surmising the original intent of the framers. Today, we understand constitutional liberties through the lens of federal judicial interpretation, which is often much different today than the prevailing interpretations at the time the Bill of Rights was framed. ... Read More

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