A compact, fully annotated reference to important documents includes coverage of crucial Supreme Court cases that have shaped America's constitutional history.

Draws on the speeches and letters of the United States' founders to recount the dramatic period after the Constitutional Convention and before the Constitution was finally ratified, describing the debates that took place in homes, taverns, and conventionhalls throughout the colonies.

"Constitutional scholar Akhil Reed Amar tells the story of America's constitutional conversation during its first eighty years--from the Constitution's birth in 1760 through the 1830s, when the last of America's early leaders died. Amar traces the threads of Constitutional discourse, uniting history and law in a narrative that seeks both to reveal this history anew and to make clear who was right and who was wrong on the biggest legal issues confronting...

Read about the highest court in the United States and learn how it has shaped our nation today.

Demonstrates how the American Constitution was forged through conflict, compromise, and eventually fragile consensus as James Madison and his cohorts devised a plan to radically alter the balance of governmental power.

"The Constitution is the most significant document in America. But do you fully understand what this valuable document means to you? In How to Read the Constitution--and Why, legal expert and educator Kimberly Wehle spells out in clear, simple, and common sense terms what is in the Constitution, and most importantly, what it means. In compelling terms and including text from the United States Constitution, she describes how the Constitution's protections...

"This book deals with important issues of constitutionalism in the American Revolution. It ranges from the imperial debate that led to the Declaration of Independence to the revolutionary state constitution making in 1776 and the creation of the Federal Constitution in 1787. It includes a discussion of slavery and constitutionalism, the emergence of the judiciary as one of the major tripartite institutions of government, and the demarcation between...