The Heritage Guide to the Constitution: Fully Revised Third Edition

by Josh Blackman (Editor), John Malcolm (Editor), Samuel Alito (Preface by), Edwin Meese III (Foreword by)

Overview

A Neutral and Thorough Accounting of the Constitution's Original Meaning

Over the past two decades, the federal judiciary has increasingly grounded its cases in the Constitution’s original meaning. Students, scholars, lawyers, and judges are now expected to understand and apply the text, history, and tradition of the Constitution. The Third Edition of The Heritage Guide to the Constitution will provide a comprehensive starting point to research these issues from before, during, and after the Constitution’s adoption. The Heritage Guide will provide all Americans with an authoritative and accessible introduction to our foundational charter.

The 216 essays in the Third Edition of The Heritage Guide were authored by more than 150 distinguished jurists, scholars, and practitioners. Each essay was carefully reviewed to ensure they were of the highest quality and accuracy, while maintaining a neutral approach. This once-a-decade publication strives to be the definitive compendium about each provision of the Constitution.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781510783355
Publisher:	Skyhorse Publishing
Publication date:	10/14/2025
Pages:	880
Product dimensions:	7.30(w) x 10.10(h) x 2.30(d)

About the Author

John G. Malcolm oversees The Heritage Foundation’s work to increase understanding of the Constitution and the rule of law as Vice President of the Institute for Constitutional Government, Director of the think tank’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies and Simon Center for American Studies, and the Ed Gilbertson and Sherry Lindberg Gilbertson Senior Legal Fellow. Malcolm brings to the challenge a wealth of legal expertise and experience in both the public and private sectors. Before being named Director of the Meese Center in July 2013, Malcolm spearheaded the center’s rule of law programs. His research and writing as Senior Legal Fellow focused on criminal law, immigration, national security, religious liberty, and intellectual property.

The Meese Center works to educate government officials, the media and the public about the Constitution and legal principles—and how they affect public policy. The center was founded in 2001 and overseen until early 2013 by the conservative icon whose name it bears, former Attorney General Edwin Meese III.
In addition to his duties at Heritage, Malcolm is past Chairman of the Criminal Law Practice Group of the Federalist Society, and also serves on the board of trustees of the Washington National Opera, and the board of directors of the Legal Services Corporation, which promotes equal access to justice and provides grants for high-quality civil legal assistance to low-income Americans; Boys Town Washington, D.C., which provides homes and services to troubled children and families who are edging toward crisis; and the Barber Family Foundation, which dispenses college scholarship funds to the children of deserving veterans.

Before joining Heritage in 2012, Malcolm was General Counsel at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom as well as a distinguished practitioner in residence at Pepperdine Law School. An independent and bipartisan panel, USCIRF reviews reported violations of religious freedom around the world and makes policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State, and Congress.

From 2004 to 2009, Malcolm was Executive Vice President and Director of worldwide anti-piracy operations for the Motion Picture Association of America.
He served as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division from 2001 to 2004, where he oversaw sections on computer crime and intellectual property, domestic security, child exploitation and obscenity, and special investigations. Immediately prior to that, he was a founding partner in the Atlanta law firm of Malcolm & Schroeder, LLP. From 1990 to 1997, Malcolm was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Atlanta, assigned to the fraud and public corruption section, and also an Associate Independent Counsel, investigating fraud and abuse in the Department of Housing and Urban Development. He was honored with the Director’s Award for Superior Performance for his work as an assistant U.S. attorney in the successful prosecution of Walter Leroy Moody Jr., who assassinated an 11th Circuit judge and the head of the Savannah chapter of the NAACP.

Malcolm began his law career as a Law Clerk to a federal district court judge and a federal appellate court judge as well as an associate at the Atlanta-based law firm of Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan (now Eversheds Sutherland). Malcolm is a graduate of Harvard Law School and holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Columbia College. Born in New York City, he grew up in Tenafly, New Jersey. He and his wife, Mary Lee, currently reside in Washington, D.C. They have two adult children, Andy and Amanda.

Josh Blackman is a national thought leader on constitutional law and the United States Supreme Court. Josh’s work was quoted during two presidential impeachment trials. He has testified before Congress and advises federal and state lawmakers. Josh regularly appears on TV, including NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, and the BBC. Josh is also a frequent guest on NPR and other syndicated radio programs. He has published commentaries in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and leading national publications.

Since 2012, Josh has served as a professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston. He holds the Centennial Chair of Constitutional Law. Josh is also an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. Josh has authored three books. His latest, An Introduction to Constitutional Law, was a top five bestseller on Amazon. Josh has written more than five dozen law review articles that have been cited nearly a thousand times. Josh was selected by Forbes Magazine for the “30 Under 30” in Law and Policy. Josh is the President of the Harlan Institute, and founded FantasySCOTUS, the Internet’s Premier Supreme Court Fantasy League. He blogs at the Volokh Conspiracy and tweets @JoshMBlackman.
 

Editorial Reviews

The time is now right for a third edition of The Heritage Guide to the Constitution. The project continues under the leadership of Josh Blackman and John Malcolm. They are building on the proud legacy of the prior editions. I am confident that this volume will serve a new generation of lawyers, professors, students, and ordinary citizens who are deeply committed to the jurisprudence of originalism I spoke about four decades ago.”—Edwin Meese III, Seventy-Fifth Attorney General of the United States

“‘We the people’ adopted the Constitution, and it is important that all Americans understand what our founding document means. Since the publication of the first edition twenty years ago, The Heritage Guide to the Constitution has been an invaluable resource for judges, lawyers, and the public at large. It marries scholarly depth and sophistication with prose that is readily accessible. The new third edition of the Guide retains the virtues of its predecessors while deepening the discussion of how constitutional provisions were understood when they were adopted. . . . Today, no savvy attorney would disregard original meaning in briefing or arguing an unsettled constitutional question in federal court. For attorneys involved in such cases—and for all other Americans who want to understand what our Constitution means—the new edition of The Heritage Guide is a great place to start.”—Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., U.S. Supreme Court

From the Publisher