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17%OFFBruce Ackerman - We the People: Volume 1: Foundations - 9780674948419 - V9780674948419
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We the People: Volume 1: Foundations

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Description for We the People: Volume 1: Foundations Paperback. A re-interpretation of American constitutional history, planned as the first of three volumes. Ackerman examines the transforming impact of popular movements on higher law. He also aims to put the Reagan revolution into perspective and redefine America's civic commitments for the future. Num Pages: 384 pages. BIC Classification: 1KBB; HBJK; HBLL; HBLW; JPHC. Category: (G) General (US: Trade); (P) Professional & Vocational; (UP) Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly; (UU) Undergraduate. Dimension: 235 x 155 x 28. Weight in Grams: 517.

Bruce Ackerman offers a sweeping reinterpretation of our nation’s constitutional experience and its promise for the future. Integrating themes from American history, political science, and philosophy, We the People confronts the past, present, and future of popular sovereignty in America. Only this distinguished scholar could present such an insightful view of the role of the Supreme Court. Rejecting arguments of judicial activists, proceduralists, and neoconservatives, Ackerman proposes a new model of judicial interpretation that would synthesize the constitutional contributions of many generations into a coherent whole. The author ranges from examining the origins of the dualist tradition in the Federalist ... Read more to reflecting upon recent, historic constitutional decisions. The latest revolutions in civil rights, and the right to privacy, are integrated into the fabric of constitutionalism. Today’s Constitution can best be seen as the product of three great exercises in popular sovereignty, led by the Founding Federalists in the 1780s, the Reconstruction Republicans in the 1860s, and the New Deal Democrats in the 1930s.

Ackerman examines the roles played during each of these periods by the Congress, the Presidency, and the Supreme Court. He shows that Americans have built a distinctive type of constitutional democracy, unlike any prevailing in Europe. It is a dualist democracy, characterized by its continuing effort to distinguish between two kinds of politics: normal politics, in which organized interest groups try to influence democratically elected representatives; and constitutional politics, in which the mass of citizens mobilize to debate matters of fundamental principle. Although American history is dominated by normal politics, our tradition places a higher value on mobilized efforts to gain the consent of the people to new governing principles. In a dualist democracy, the rare triumphs of constitutional politics determine the course of normal politics.

More than a decade in the making, and the first of three volumes, We the People, Volume 1: Foundations speaks to all who seek to renew and redefine our civic commitments in the decades ahead.

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Product Details

Publisher
Harvard University Press
Number of pages
384
Format
Paperback
Publication date
1993
Condition
New
Weight
517g
Number of Pages
384
Place of Publication
Cambridge, Mass., United States
ISBN
9780674948419
SKU
V9780674948419
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 7 to 11 working days
Ref
99-1

About Bruce Ackerman
Bruce Ackerman is Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University and the award-winning author of eighteen books, including Social Justice in the Liberal State and his multivolume constitutional history We the People. His book The Stakeholder Society (written with Anne Alstott) served as a basis for Tony Blair’s introduction of child investment accounts in the United Kingdom. ... Read more

Reviews for We the People: Volume 1: Foundations
[We the People] cuts through the futile and absurd search for the ‘original intent of the founders’ as the way to discover the will of the people. It recognizes that the great and extraordinary occasions required for action by the people have not been confined to a single instance in the eighteenth century. It deflates the pretensions of politicians in ... Read more

Goodreads reviews for We the People: Volume 1: Foundations


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