Product Description

"All readers interested in today's constitutional courts will profit from eavesdropping on this conversation."
—Judicature

This collection of essays on constitutional law is designed to introduce the reader to the range of issues concerning constitutional theory that occupy the attention of constitutional scholars in the United States today.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4187738 in Books
• Published on: 2002-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 300 pages

About the Author

Mark V. Tushnet is Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center.

Customer Reviews

HORRIBLE
I am finishing my second year of law school, so I have read quite a few case books. This is BY FAR the worst.
I have the 5th edition.
The cases are poorly edited, leaving out important information.
But the notes are even worse. The notes are very poorly organized, with very few headings and sub-headings. Between cases there is a seemingly endless sea of words with very few interesting points to make. Instead of using footnotes for the ridiculous number of citations, the authors decided to use in-line cites. This makes the book EXTREMELY difficult to read. It is common to see an entire paragraph that is entirely comprised of citations (literally!). Even the normal paragraphs are too cluttered with cites to be readable. If you have about 40 hours per week to devote to ConLaw, then you might enjoy all the cites (you will need to look them up yourself, because most are not explained). But if you are a law student, you will not have time to wade through this ocean of rambling.
This is basically a 1,700 page sleeping pill.

Professors: please do not inflict this book on your students.
Use Chemerinsky instead.

Keep looking
I hate to say it because I've actually had both Prof. Stone and Sunstein as teachers and they are great men, but even with my personal bias for them, this is still a poorly written casebook. I used it for two classes - one that covered Equal Protection and one over the structure of government. The section of the book on Equal Protection isn't too bad. It has some nice historical material, and most people are already somewhat familiar with the cases anyway. However, the section of the book on government structure and the commerce clause is truly attrocious. The cases aren't well edited. Sometimes the result of a case will turn on a statute and the text and even title of that statute will have been edited out. Its hard to tell what is important from the cases consequently. There are long strings of cites in cases and the notes after the cases are cramped with no real headings and hard to make heads or tales of. Half the time you can't tell why you are reading a case - what your supposed to be getting out of it and how it relates to the other cases you've read.

Terrible Casebook
It's a casebook, so it's not supposed to be great reading, but this one is by far the worst casebook I've ever had. The only thing a casebook needs to do to achieve mediocrity is contain cases. This doesn't, not really. It gives you the cliff's notes of important cases. One sentence blurbs about others. And pages and pages of rambling, aimless, academic debate. It may be a good book for Con Law professors and others who have already read all of the cases discussed. For someone trying to learn con law, it is useless. It is also organized very poorly. Any class organized around this book is doomed from the start. If your professor uses this book, take another class. If you can't take another class, buy the Chemerinsky treatise and rely on that instead. Professors: DO NOT USE THIS BOOK.