The Oxford Handbook of the U.S. Constitution

The Oxford Handbook of the U.S. Constitution offers a comprehensive overview and introduction to the U.S. Constitution from the perspectives of history, political science, law, rights, and constitutional themes, while focusing on its development, structures, rights, and role in the U.S. political system and culture. This Handbook enables readers within and beyond the U.S. to develop a critical comprehension of the literature on the Constitution, along with accessible and up-to-date analysis. The historical essays included in this Handbook cover the Constitution from 1620 right through the Reagan Revolution to the present. Essays on political science detail how contemporary citizens in the United States rely extensively on political parties, interest groups, and bureaucrats to operate a constitution designed to prevent the rise of parties, interest-group politics and an entrenched bureaucracy. The essays on law explore how contemporary citizens appear to expect and accept the exertions of power by a Supreme Court, whose members are increasingly disconnected from the world of practical politics. Essays on rights discuss how contemporary citizens living in a diverse multi-racial society seek guidance on the meaning of liberty and equality, from a Constitution designed for a society in which all politically relevant persons shared the same race, gender, religion and ethnicity. Lastly, the essays on themes explain how in a "globalized" world, people living in the United States can continue to be governed by a constitution originally meant for a society geographically separated from the rest of the "civilized world." Whether a return to the pristine constitutional institutions of the founding or a translation of these constitutional norms in the present is possible remains the central challenge of U.S. constitutionalism today.

List of Contributors ; 1. Introduction ; History ; 2. The Constitution from 1620 to the Early Republic/David Brian Robertson ; 3. Constitutional Developments from Jackson through Reconstruction/Michael Les Benedict ; 4. The Gilded Age through the Progressive Era/Ken I. Kersch ; 5. From the New Deal through the Reagan Revolution/L.A. Powe, Jr. ; 6. The Reagan Revolution to the Present/Thomas M. Keck ; Political Science ; 7. Constitutions as Basic Structure/Neil Komesar ; 8. The Constitutional Politics of Congress/Neal Devins ; 9. The Constitutional Politics of the Executive Branch/Mariah Zeisberg ; 10. The Constitutional Politics of the Judiciary/Justin Crowe ; 11. The Uneasy Place of Parties in the Constitutional Order/Russell Muirhead, and Nancy L. Rosenblum ; 12. Social Movements and the Constitution/Mark Tushnet ; 13. The Administrative State: Law, Democracy, and Knowledge/Adrian Vermeule ; 14. The Resilience of the American Federal System/Jenna Bednar ; 15. Empire/Bartholomew H. Sparrow ; 16. The Evolution of America's Fiscal Constitution/Bill White ; Law ; 17. The Executive Power/Stephen M. Griffin ; 18. Enforcing the Fifteenth Amendment/Ellen D. Katz ; 19. The Power of Judicial Review/Keith E. Whittington ; 20. Delegation, Accommodation, and the Permeability of Constitutional and Ordinary Law/Gillian E. Metzger ; 21. Federalism/Michael S. Greve ; Rights ; 22. Equality/ Julie Novkov ; 23. Liberty/James E. Fleming, and Linda C. McClain ; 24. Property in the United States Constitution/ Jedediah Purdy ; 25. Gender, Sex, and the U.S. Constitution/Leslie F. Goldstein ; 26. Racial Rights/ Girardeau A. Spann ; 27. Autonomy (of Individuals and Private Associations)/Dale Carpenter ; 28. Citizenship/Gerald L. Neuman ; 29. Religion/Winnifred Fallers Sullivan ; 30. Free Speech and Free Press/ Stephen M. Feldman ; 31. Criminal Procedure/Carol S. Steiker ; 32. Habeas Corpus/Paul D. Halliday ; 33. Native Americans/Matthew L. M. Fletcher ; 34. Positive Rights/Emily Zackin ; 35. The Right to Bear Arms/Saul Cornell ; Themes ; 36. Constitutionalism/Mark E. Brandon ; 37. Emergency Powers/Oren Gross ; 38. Constitutional Authority/Wayne D. Moore ; 39. Is Constitutional Law Really Law?/David A. Strauss ; 40. Constitutionalism Outside the Courts/Ernest A. Young ; 41. State Constitutionalism/John Dinan ; 42. Interpretation/Jamal Greene ; 43. Constitutional Change/Gerard N. Magliocca ; 44. The U.S. Constitution and International Law/Vicki C. Jackson ; 45. The Constitution in Comparative Perspective/Heinz Klug ; 46. Education and the Constitution/Elizabeth Beaumont ; 47. The Economics of Constitutional Law/Maxwell L. Stearns ; 48. The Constitution and United States Culture/Paul W. Kahn ; Index