“This short but provocative volume… is a fitting testimony to the author’s extraordinary, though tragically brief, career as a constitutional scholar, lawyer and teacher. In just a hundred and a half literate pages, we are treated to vintage Bickel insight into every major political issue of the decade, from the civil rights movement, to the Warren Court, through the frenetic university upheavals, and—inevitably—to Watergate…. A tapestry woven by a master of subtle color and texture.”—Alan M. Dershowitz,
New York Times Book Review
“Presents the core of [Bickel’s] legal and political philosophy…. In the five essays that compose this volume Bickel explores the relationship between morality and law, examining the role of the Constitution and Supreme Court in our political process, the nature of citizenship, the First Amendment, civil disobedience, and the moral authority of the intellectual…. All will be stimulated by Bickel’s thoughtful message.” –
Perspective
“[Bickel] wrote with astonishing clarity. It takes no legal training to understand his thinking about the law. Nor does it take a willingness to agree with him. All that’s required of the reader of this important ‘little’ book is a concern that rivals Bickel’s about the future of American society.” –
Newsweek
“An illuminating, often a moving book, with all of Professor Bickel’s rare ability to bring law to life in vivid words.”—Anthony Lewis
Alexander M. Bickel,
Sterling Professor of Law at Yale Law School, taught at Yale from 1956 until his death in 1974.