Longtime users will recognize these distinctive characteristics of the casebook:
- multi-disciplinary approach that utilizes a variety of critical and social perspectives to explore constitutional law
- extensive textual summaries of the state of the law and its development
- comprehensive book ideal for a two-semester course
- clear and concise coverage of First Amendment law
The Fifth Edition reflects recent developments and class experience:
- issues of constitutional obligation and constitutionalism in times of crisis incorporated into the opening chapter
- reorganization of materials on the powers of Congress, with the materials on "other powers of congress" separated into a new Chapter 3
- completely updated chapter on the Distribution of National Powers, with new material growing out of the war on terrorism and its implications for free speech, immigration, naturalization, privacy, and due process, as well as enemy combatant controversies
- notes are shortened, simplified, and thoroughly updated