The Constitution Today

Timeless Lessons for the Issues of Our Era

By: Akhil Reed Amar

Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain

When the stories that lead our daily news involve momentous constitutional questions, present-minded journalists and busy citizens cannot always see the stakes clearly. In The Constitution Today, Akhil Reed Amar, America's preeminent constitutional scholar, considers the biggest and most bitterly contested debates of the last two decades - from gun control to gay marriage, affirmative action to criminal procedure, presidential dynasties to Congressional dysfunction, Bill Clinton's impeachment to Obamacare. He shows how the Constitution's text, history, and structure are a crucial repository of collective wisdom, providing specific rules and grand themes relevant to every organ of the American body politic.

Leading listeners through the particular constitutional questions at stake in each episode while outlining his abiding views regarding the Constitution's letter, its spirit, and the direction constitutional law must go, Amar offers an essential guide for anyone seeking to understand America's Constitution and its relevance today.

©2016 Akhil Reed Amar (P)2016 Tantor

A little too much 'Akhil Reed Amar today'

The title is misleading. Yes, there is content relating to the title, but this, unlike the other books by Amar I have read and enjoyed, which dug well into history and scholarly context, is far more personalized and journalistic. It is apparently compiled from more journalistic writings. And there is far too much Amar here, emerging from the background in a way I have no desire to contemplate. Dude, I'm interested in the Constitution, that's what I'm here for, and not your ephemeral image and feelings and experiences and political opinions.
Your personal trivia is sub-zero interesting. You are another bland nerd, OK? I'll follow through and complete this, but I am in no hurry.

Fantastic

Learned a lot about the constitution that I didn’t know. I’m not a lawyer so it needed to avoid technical jargon, and it did. It also changed my mind about a few things I thought was fact.

Amar is a Brilliant Arguer

Anyone interested in a careful scholar's view of the Constitution's relevance to modern life should read this book. I admit agreeing with the author more than not, but his careful scholarship and Constitutional analysis, demands respect.

The book will not engage true constitutional scholars, or so I suspect (their loss). Professor Amar writes with the informed and interested citizen in mind. But a political polemic it is not. Amar explains his understanding of Constitutional reasoning and in a series of overviews to previously published articles (and those articles), shows how ordinary voters can be taught constitutional concepts. He also does not take the easy out -- saying that all controversies have two equal or nearly equal constitutional arguments. For example, Dred Scott was wrong. While people defend positions and their arguments should be addressed respectfully and defeated decisively.

As a reader, there will likely be moments when you want to say "I don't think so" to what you are reading. Some of the arguments and analysis here raised my eyebrows or furrowed my brow. But on the whole, just about all of us can profit from reading this book.

Self absorbed

The author seems more interested in self- promotion than anything else. He has many ideas that would never work in the real world.

Waste of time.

What disappointed you about The Constitution Today?

I listened as long as I could without throwing my phone out the window. This guy has such a distorted view of the constitution that I actually feel kind of bad for him. Add to that an embarrassing lack of knowledge of this subject and you have to endure a bias for his own misguided beliefs based on poor understanding of the subject. This book will leave any listener with a poorer understanding of American constitutional law than if they had just remained totally ignorant of it. I will be returning this piece of trash immediately.

Would you ever listen to anything by Akhil Reed Amar again?

No way.

How could the performance have been better?

The only improvement would be to delete the entire book.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from The Constitution Today?

I couldn’t stand to listen to this nut job long enough to make that determination.

Any additional comments?

Unless the listener is interested in reinforcing his or her own misguided and poorly researched beliefs on the constitution, I suggest staying away from this author.

The author is extremely fond of himself.

The actual subject matter isn't bad if you can get past the never ending self aggrandizement.

starts "unbiased" shifts to extreme left push

Some good supposedly unbiased or only moderatley biased start then slips to articles where author takes turns referring to any current democrat leaders as children of Lincoln, truth, justce and the American way, and any Republicans are hateful evil . . . The author even seems to be referring to himself as a member of Team Garland the "noble group" trying to get Merik Garland onto supreme court over objections of Senate confirmation process. Pretense of reasoned thoughtful analysis seems badly undermined, by name calling and smear approach that unveils hardcore partisan leanings. some parts of book may still have value and provide insight but it is hard to give credibility to author after some harsh partisan rants, letting us know not just front runners but also secondary contestants for republican presidential nomination are in fact cousins of the Devil.

I remember now

I remembered too late why I don't read Amar's "journalistic" pieces (his term). For as deep an expert in the U.S. Constitution as he is (and let me be clear he is one of America's foremost experts on the Constitution), his understanding of politics is downright smooth-brained. McCain-Feingold is bad because money is speech? The Court blundered badly in holding that (Citizens United), and Amar looks clueless rallying to its defense. Speech is available to all, money is not. This is the core as to why regulation of the former is unconstitutional and regulation of latter is constitutional and good. My only guess is that Amar has just spent too much time in the confines of the Ivy bubble that is Yale.

His take on the exclusion rule tells me that Amar has never had a single encounter with a cop where the cop was anything but deferential to him. For the rest of us, who have had “spicier” encounters with cops, the exclusion rule is necessary to reign in the excesses of the police.

The rest of the book is an early 2000's rap song about how every judge wants to be him and every lawyer wants to sleep with him.

In short, the best thing about this book is that the publisher is wisely giving it away for free in the Plus Catalog, which is why it’s 2 stars instead of 1.