I was more interested in what he had to say as a scholar of law than a political scientist. I picked up a lot (in particular interesting arguments regarding the enactment of the constitution and reconstruction arguments) and definitely learned a lot of historical context. Additionally, I really enjoyed his bringing in of sources such as the Federalist, Blackstone's Commentaries, a short mention of Rawls and colonial cases such as Zengler. The author is clearly knowledgeable and the breadth of topics is pretty impressive. I felt like generally the book wasn't organized very well, it was jumpy between topics and sometimes instead of sustained argument it would dismiss counter arguments with cliches. I don't think he spends enough time refuting various schools of thought, and is generally more preoccupied with being novel or clever. Generally, I thought it was too topical, and reads more like a political science book than a book about the law. Still very enjoyable and educational, I'm going to work on his earlier book next. ( )

The author makes what sounds boring into a very readable--exciting at times--discovery story with tremendous value for our times; it took me six months to read not because it was boring, but because I wasn't reading anything outside of work for about four of those months. If only many (some) of those who tirelessly comment on social media about today's ills and the direction of the U.S.A. would read and try to understand some of the key points, such as how "rights" can become recognized as such.

I was ( )

Big impression first: I loved reading it, but would be hesitant to recommend it to a general population rather than a few selected folks. I am likely to check out his other book now that I have some basic tools.

Tons of ideas, lots to think about, so much fun. I already bought his first premise*—that the basic text of the Constitution is not (and even cannot be) unambiguous enough to handle every possible question in the intention of the law without interpretive lenses. I very much enjoyed reading his analyses of these different lenses and maybe in writing this out I will have a clearer grasp of them. He also makes various statements about how some of the courts have held in ways that are less than logical—that in itself would be fascinating contrarian reading if I were more familiar with the original opinions.

However, there are some passages, especially in the first half, where he states or strongly implies that people who believe certain things are stupid rather than ill-informed. I try very hard not to collect umbrage about such things, but I don't think I'm in the majority. There are also a few places where he doesn't define certain terms until after he has been using them, so I suspect he could have benefited from stronger editing.

Some of the principles the author seems to use are

1. a fortiori... just as in logic... if the Constitution tells you to do something because of a principle weakly holding, you should also do it where the principle strongly holds, all other things being equal

2. derivation of authority... the way the Constitution is enacted tells us where it derives its authority, and so also tells us something about how we should interpret it, including things like the rights people act like and believe they have (including ones that derived from a court opinion that may not have been the most correct at that time), the assumptions they would have already made when approving the text (e.g. thinking that majorities are the default way to decide a vote, and what they would have seen in the circulated text and things like the Federalist papers), and the other important texts that color what we think the Constitution is about

3. law can be like muscles... Laws that have been made but not used do not have as strong a case as ones that have been used and had problems worked through. In cases where there are multiple plausible ways to understand something, then the way that early government settled into doing it seems like a good idea, since they would've worked out snags (George Washington giving up on hanging out with the Senate and hanging out with his Cabinet instead) and would have been the people folks were picturing doing the work of that early government. So there can be elements of path dependence.

4. going beyond and going against are not necessarily the same thing. There are things you must do, and things you must not do, and then there is everything else, which you have to not arbitrarily lump into yes or no but weigh whether doing it or not doing it will make the musts and must-nots more achievable. So things that make it far more possible to do something you must do, like postpone various trials and proceedings until someone is not in the middle of trying to get government done, or setting up a bank to run the inter-state commerce, are things you better do.

5. symmetry and the balance of power. If one branch can regulate its members in some way, for example, there should be a good reason to not have the other branches similarly regulate its members. ( )