Describe your latest project. Norton has just published The Autobiography of Fidel Castro, a novel that took seven years of my life to complete as I...
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Every passage of the Constitution and the Amendments becomes comprehensible and more meaningful upon reading Prof. Amar's work. He places each passage in its historical context and draws out its purpose by showing how it was intended to imitate, or to diverge from, what other governments had done before. He clearly describes how history, geography, and political necessity mutually influenced the tone and direction of the Constitution, and shows how meanings sometimes changed over time. This book is an education in American history and politics all by itself, and is happily free of any liberal or conservative bias that I could detect. I would recommend it to anyone as a central work useful for understanding the American governmental structure and why it is the way it is.
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America's Constitution: A Biography by Akhil Reed Amar
Eric Nelsen, May 22, 2006
Every passage of the Constitution and the Amendments becomes comprehensible and more meaningful upon reading Prof. Amar's work. He places each passage in its historical context and draws out its purpose by showing how it was intended to imitate, or to diverge from, what other governments had done before. He clearly describes how history, geography, and political necessity mutually influenced the tone and direction of the Constitution, and shows how meanings sometimes changed over time. This book is an education in American history and politics all by itself, and is happily free of any liberal or conservative bias that I could detect. I would recommend it to anyone as a central work useful for understanding the American governmental structure and why it is the way it is.(10 of 18 readers found this comment helpful)