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The constitutional bind : how Americans came to idolize a document that fails them
Author
Title
The constitutional bind : how Americans came to idolize a document that fails them / Aziz Rana.
ISBN
9780226350721
022635072X
9780226350868
Publication
Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2024.
Physical Description
xii, 805 pages ; 24 cm.
Summary
"Americans today are increasingly uneasy about the democratic weaknesses of their Federal Constitution. But for most of living memory that very Constitution has been idealized as near perfect. How could it be that this flawed system came to enjoy such intense veneration? In a striking reinterpretation of the American constitutional past, Aziz Rana connects the spread of a distinctive twentieth century American relationship to its founding document to another development rarely treated alongside it: the rise of the U.S. to global dominance. In the process, he highlights the role of constitutional veneration in shaping the terms of American power abroad, with ultimately transformative effects at home for narratives of nation and ideas of reform. In the process, Rana also explores the remarkably diverse array of movement activists-in Black, Indigenous, feminist, labor, and immigrant politics-that struggled to imagine a very different constitutional horizon, one grounded in equal and effective freedom for all and able to overcome the basic limitations of the consolidating legal-political system. These voices of opposition, including to the Constitution itself, have overwhelmingly been excised from constitutional memory. And yet they offer essential insights for making sense of our present difficulties, in which Americans find themselves bereft of the constitutional sureties that have long shaped collective life"-- Provided by publisher.
Format
Books
Language
English
Added to Catalog
April 18, 2024
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents
Preface: Three centennials
The American constitutional romance
Disagreement and experimentation in the Gilded Age, 1887-1917. Settler crisis and constitutional uncertainty ; Class narratives and the high tide of "constitution tinkering" ; The Socialist constitutional alternative ; Developing universalist empire in the Philippines
The spread of a new constitutional citizenship, 1917-1945. World War I, the security state, and constitutional loyalty ; Inclusion and exclusion in interwar Americanism ; Transformation and preservation in the New Deal ; The good war and constitution worship
Consolidating the American model, 1945-1965. Launching the American century ; Red scare constitutionalism ; Cold War reform and the reframing of American identity ; Constitutional myths and the victory of the court
Alternative paths and constitutional erasure, 1965-1987. Left resurgence and the decolonial project ; The rise of originalist America
Conclusion: Constitutional accounting.
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