Amending America: If We Love the Constitution So Much, Why Do We Keep Trying to Change It?

Amending America: If We Love the Constitution So Much, Why Do We Keep Trying to Change It?

by Richard B. Bernstein, Jerome Agel
Amending America: If We Love the Constitution So Much, Why Do We Keep Trying to Change It?

Amending America: If We Love the Constitution So Much, Why Do We Keep Trying to Change It?

by Richard B. Bernstein, Jerome Agel

eBook

$9.99 

Available on Compatible NOOK Devices and the free NOOK Apps.
WANT A NOOK?  Explore Now

Related collections and offers

LEND ME® See Details

Overview

The story of how the Constitution has been reshaped over the past 200 years to meet America's changing needs. Since 1789, 27 amendments were adopted — creating the Bill of Rights, banning liquor, protecting the right to vote and reworking how we choose presidents and senators — and more than 10,000 failed. Proposed amendments tried to stave off the Civil War and then wrote its results into the Constitution.

"[A] thoughtful history of the Amendments to the Constitution... An excellent delineation of issues debated by modern constitutional scholars." — Kirkus

"[A] sober, straightforward history of the process of amending the Constitution" — Publishers Weekly

"[A] comprehensive and engaging study of Article V's procedures for amending the constitution." — Washington Post

"The authors capture the essence of the importance of the amending process in a highly readable, gracefully written book... This book, which discusses knotty legal and constitutional issues without stuffiness and in plain language, should be easy reading for students and laypersons." — The Journal of American History

"[A] readable, intelligently organized, and well-informed history of how and why the Constitution has been amended." — The Historian

"[S]cholarly and readable." — Human Rights

"Bernstein's work is engaging and stimulating... he is to be commended for explaining so carefully just how complex a set of questions and problems cluster around Article 5." — The American Historical Review

"Well written... this volume fills an important gap in the current literature and is likely to be the standard account of amending history for some time to come." — The American Journal of Legal History

"[A] masterful book, daring in its scope and impeccable in its execution. Amending America is a great work of scholarship that does justice to the United States Constitution as a living and evolving document. It is a tribute to the working of American democracy, and contributes to our understanding of its evolution and its unfinished agenda." — Vartan Gregorian, President, Brown University

"A magnificent treasure trove of American history, which brings to life why our Constitution has remained a 'living document' for over two centuries. Amending America is a wonderful book for anyone interested in our country." — Arthur R. Miller, Bruce Bromley Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

"Amending America is invaluable for just about anybody seeking to understand the contradictions of our approach to constitutional government. With grace, insight, and considerable information, Bernstein and Agel have written what should be the standard work for a long time to come." — Herbert S. Parmet, Distinguished Professor of History, City University of New York, author of Richard Nixon and His America

"Amending America admirably illuminates the complex and remarkable history of the American people's repeated attempts to amend the Constitution, and captures that history's enduring significance. Written with scholarship, clarity, and grace, this book recovers a previously neglected dimension of American constitutional history." — William E. Nelson, Professor of Law, New York University, author of The Fourteenth Amendment: From Political Principle to Judicial Doctrine

"Instructive and fascinating. The book is thorough, erudite, and packed with the anecdotes that make our political past so enjoyable to review." — Minneapolis Star Tribune

"An intelligent, carefully researched, and highly readable account." — Detroit News

Product Details

BN ID: 2940186606499
Publisher: Plunkett Lake Press
Publication date: 09/25/2022
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
File size: 1 MB

About the Author

Born in Flushing, New York in 1956, Richard B. Bernstein is a scholar of American constitutional history and a biographer of founders of the American Republic and of its constitutional system. Educated in the New York City public schools, he graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1973, received his BA from Amherst College in 1977 where his mentor was Henry Steele Commager, and earned his J.D. degree from the Harvard Law School in 1980. After three years practicing law in New York City, Bernstein returned to academia in 1983, pursuing graduate study in history at New York University. From 1991 through 2014, he was an adjunct professor of law at New York Law School, rising to the rank of Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Law. He also was director of online operations at Heights Books, Inc., in Brooklyn, New York, until the used books store closed in 2011. In 2011, he became an adjunct professor of political science at the City College of New York’s Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership. He is now a full-time lecturer in law and political science at CCNY.

Bernstein’s books include Are We to Be a Nation? The Making of the Constitution (1987), Amending America (1993), Thomas Jefferson (2003), considered the best modern short biography of Jefferson, The Founding Fathers: A Very Short Introduction (2015), and The Education of John Adams (2020). He is working on three books to be published by Oxford University Press, Alexander Hamilton: The Energetic Founder, Hamilton: A Very Short Introduction, and Jefferson: A Very Short Introduction. Future books include two more Oxford projects, The Man Who Gave Up Power: A Life of George Washington and John Jay: The Diplomatic Founder.
From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews