One of the most significant works about constitutional interpretation in recent years.
An incisive rethinking of the U.S. Constitution.
Sunstein, the founder and director of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy at Harvard Law School, begins by pointing out the irrefutable fact that “the Constitution does not contain the instructions for its own interpretation.” Thus, “no approach to constitutional interpretation is required or self-justifying.” On those grounds, he briskly swats away every jurisprudentially, philosophically, and historically justified interpretive scheme—“anti-originalist” as well as “originalist,” of the left as well as the right—that has been advanced since the 19th century. All schools and schemes of interpretation fall before his generous-spirited ax strokes. In their place, he argues, there can be only one acceptable, humane approach to judicial interpretation: the search among jurists for a “ ‘reflective equilibrum’ in which [jurists’] judgments, at multiple levels of generality, are brought into alignment with each other” in order to achieve the most democratically acceptable and fairest outcome achievable at the time. “There is no alternative to the search for reflective equilibrium,” writes the author, because “no theory makes sense for every imaginable world.” Though disarmingly and intentionally “simple and straightforward,” as well as open-hearted, common-sensical, and succinct, Sunstein’s text, given its grave and demanding subject, requires readers’ attentiveness. Despite the author’s fair-mindedness, it’s clear that his main targets are the originalist and traditionalist arguments that have recently captured the radical right and are overturning decades of settled constitutional law. Is Sunstein’s interpretive scheme strong enough to halt the further advance of originalist and traditionalist thinking on the Supreme Court? Probably not. But it’s a brave, muscular, and compelling roadblock now standing in the way of originalist ideologues. This book should be in the hands of every law student, constitutional lawyer, judge, and Supreme Court justice.
One of the most significant works about constitutional interpretation in recent years.Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2023
ISBN: 9780691252049
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Princeton Univ.
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
A top-notch political memoir and serious exercise in practical politics for every reader.
In the first volume of his presidential memoir, Obama recounts the hard path to the White House.
In this long, often surprisingly candid narrative, Obama depicts a callow youth spent playing basketball and “getting loaded,” his early reading of difficult authors serving as a way to impress coed classmates. (“As a strategy for picking up girls, my pseudo-intellectualism proved mostly worthless,” he admits.) Yet seriousness did come to him in time and, with it, the conviction that America could live up to its stated aspirations. His early political role as an Illinois state senator, itself an unlikely victory, was not big enough to contain Obama’s early ambition, nor was his term as U.S. Senator. Only the presidency would do, a path he painstakingly carved out, vote by vote and speech by careful speech. As he writes, “By nature I’m a deliberate speaker, which, by the standards of presidential candidates, helped keep my gaffe quotient relatively low.” The author speaks freely about the many obstacles of the race—not just the question of race and racism itself, but also the rise, with “potent disruptor” Sarah Palin, of a know-nothingism that would manifest itself in an obdurate, ideologically driven Republican legislature. Not to mention the meddlings of Donald Trump, who turns up in this volume for his idiotic “birther” campaign while simultaneously fishing for a contract to build “a beautiful ballroom” on the White House lawn. A born moderate, Obama allows that he might not have been ideological enough in the face of Mitch McConnell, whose primary concern was then “clawing [his] way back to power.” Indeed, one of the most compelling aspects of the book, as smoothly written as his previous books, is Obama’s cleareyed scene-setting for how the political landscape would become so fractured—surely a topic he’ll expand on in the next volume.
A top-notch political memoir and serious exercise in practical politics for every reader.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6316-9
Page Count: 768
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020
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