American Constitutional Law: Essays, Cases, and Comparative Notes, Volume 1 - Softcover

Donald P. Kommers is Joseph and Elizabeth Robbie Professor of Political Science and professor of law emeritus at Notre Dame University. John E. Finn is professor of government at Wesleyan University. Gary J. Jacobsohn is H. Malcolm MacDonald Professor in Constitutional and Comparative Law in the Department of Government at University of Texas at Austin.

The third edition of American Constitutional Law is a tour de force in the realm of constitutional law texts. The authors do a remarkable job of placing American constitutional lawmaking in broader normative, interpretive, political, historical, and comparative contexts. They show how constitutional lawmaking is an interesting and contested enterprise that includes much more than the decisions of courts; and they invite the teacher, student, and reader to think critically and for themselves about constitutional law. For instructors who want their students to understand and participate in the compelling an controversial enterprise of constitutional politics and lawmaking, this text is the book for them. (Donald A. Downs)

This should quickly become one of the most important major casebooks in constitutional law. The introductory essays place the cases into well-developed contexts of history and political theory. The casebook's major new contribution is its elegant and rigorous use of materials necessary to evaluate the constitution through a comparativist perspective. An outstanding casebook. (Mariah Zeisberg)

At a time when the study and practice of constitutional law has once again become increasingly global, this casebook stands alone among all American constitutional law casebooks for the amount and excellence of its treatment of comparative constitutional issues. (David Fontana)

Kommers, Finn and Jacobsohn have created an ideal introduction to constitutional law. Every element of this text emphasizes how disagreements among Supreme Court Justices past and present reflect competing visions about the proper scope of judicial power and about the very nature of American constitutionalism. (Frank J. Colucci)