The Constitution Explained

June 1, 2022

The First, Second, and Fifth Amendments are often referred to, but--if social media is any indication--only vaguely understood by most of us. The rest of the Constitution fares mostly worse. To the rescue is this comprehensive, clear work by Hudson, who teaches First Amendment law at Belmont University's College of Law in Nashville. Beyond the Constitution itself, Hudson addresses related topics, such as methods of interpreting the Constitution, controversial Supreme Court picks, and the composition of the court.

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2022
Genuinely revolutionary in design, amazingly compact, and suitably flexible, the U.S. Constitution has been amended only 27 times in 230 years. This handy guide is designed to ""demystify and unpack"" the Constitution. It will help non-experts navigate safely amidst the passionate, thorny, and devilishly nuanced debates about its authority with regard to contemporary hot-button issues like gun control, freedom of choice, and the electoral college process. Beginning with a concise account of why the framers believed a constitution was necessary, the book offers a straightforward explanation of the Constitution's first three articles (legislative, executive, judicial branches), surveys Articles IV-VII, and examines the first ten amendments that comprise the Bill of Rights. Following chapters look at the Fourteenth Amendment (citizenship, due process, equal protection of the laws) and the Twenty-First Amendment (prohibition). A brief closing chapter notes ""Continuing Constitutional Controversies"" such as the legitimacy of masking and vaccination requirements during COVID. Constitution Explained merits an enthusiastic recommendation for collections curated for general readership, secondary school students, and college undergraduates.

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August 1, 2022

Focusing on the Constitution's history, including the Articles of Confederation, the Philadelphia Convention, the Bill of Rights, and selected other amendments, Hudson's (law, Belmont Univ.; First Things First) simply written book includes chapters ranging from four ("Articles of Confederation") to 33 pages ("First Amendment") in length and references historical and current events (President Trump's impeachments; the riot on January 6, 2021). A few topics, such as Black Lives Matter, are only mentioned as illustration captions, and Hudson does not examine potential applications of the Constitution to contemporary issues. The work ends with a six-page chapter that is more conclusion than discussion of ongoing constitutional controversies. A detailed index, which includes illustrations and cross references, lists people, court cases, places, media, organizations, and legislation and historical events. An appendix includes the full text of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and the title also includes a current bibliography. Most recent similar titles are limited to the full text of the founding documents. Three older titles--Ray Raphael's The U.S. Constitution (2017), Susan Low Bloch and Vicki C. Jackson's Federalism (2013), and John R. Vile's Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 1789-2010 (2010)--offer more detailed discussion. VERDICT Despite its limited coverage of amendments, this adds to the content in Bloch and Jackson's and Vile's works, and will interest general readers as well as students of political science, government, and teacher education.--Laurie Selwyn

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.