Academic

Book Announcement: We the People: New Beginnings by Ackerman

By Lawrence Solum

Harvard University Press has announced the publication of We the People: New Beginnings by Bruce Ackerman. Here is description:

Constitutional change, seemingly so orderly, formal, and refined, has in fact been a revolutionary process from the first, as Bruce Ackerman has made clear in the first two volumes of "We the People." In the first volume, Beginnings, Ackerman demonstrated that the Founding Fathers, hardly the genteel conservatives of myth, set America on a remarkable course of revolutionary disruption and constitutional creativity that endures to this day. In the second volume, Ackerman explored Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party's revolutionization of the the traditional system of constitutional amendment as they put principles of liberty and equality into higher law. Another wrenching transformation occurred during the Great Depression, when Franklin Roosevelt and his New Dealers vindicated a new vision of activist government against an assault by the Supreme Court.

In this third volume of "We the People," Ackerman turns to fiction as he develops a powerful new narrative of constitutional transformation that embeds a blueprint for the completion of the New Deal revolution in a provocative story of environmental crisis and recovery. Set in the not too distant future, Ackerman provides a vivid account of an Earth devastated by global warming and a well-intention but desperate Faustian bargain with nuclear energy. Led by one of the most remarkable protagonists in contemporary speculative fiction, Shari Heldon, an intrepid band of scientists, astronauts, and constitutional theorists, prepare a modern day Ark for a voyage to humanity's new home. Ackerman's skillful narrative creates almost unbearable suspense as crew and passengers engage in passionate debate about social justice in the liberal state. As the Ark approaches New Earth and the time for deliberation runs short, Ackerman makes the interplay between the intricate processes of democratic will formation and the classic ideas of political philosophy as exciting as the latest legal thriller from John Grisham.

And from the reviews:

This novel of ideas is as entertaining as it is profound. No one does fictional constitutional narrative better than Ackerman.
--Jeb Rubenfeld

A brilliant depiction of the way that constitutional law operates as a master plan, "We the People: A New Beginning" will surely whet the appetite of a new generation of readers for a more analytic and conceptual approach to the fundamental issues of jurisprudence.
--Scott Shapiro

A must read for anyone who interested in the future of high constitutional theory as practiced by a visionary who has never been constrained by mere facts.
--Stephen Carter

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on April 01, 2009 (boomark / email).