The Supreme’s Greatest Hits

by Michael Trachtman

 

Can the government seize your house in order to build a shopping mall? Can it determine what you can do to your own body?  Why are you allowed to copy songs on a CD, but not music files the Internet? The answers to those questions come from the Supreme Court—and its rulings have shaped American life and justice. Here are 34 of the most significant issues it has grappled with—from equal rights to privacy rights, from the limits of speech to the boundaries between church and state. Many of these cases read like thrillers…right down to their cliff-hanging endings. Among the most intriguing: the Dred Scott decision, Miranda v. Arizona, Brown v. Board of Education, Roe v. Wade, and Bush v. Gore.

Terror and Consent

by Michael Bobbit

With The Shield of Achilles (2002), constitutional law and nuclear strategy scholar Bobbitt argued, among other things, that the epoch of the nation-state is ending. Governments of the twenty-first century and beyond, he argued, will increasingly be “market states”: global, networked, decentralized, and considerably privatized states whose primary objective is to maximize the (primarily economic) opportunities of its citizens. With his latest book, Bobbitt examines at great length the relationship between the emergent constitutional order and the emergence of modern “market state terrorism,” which, mirroring the market state and availing itself of the same technological advances, may be lethal enough to pose an existential threat to the very possibility of government by consent of the governed. Arguing that America is indeed in a war against terror itself, not merely terrorists, Bobbitt finds the key to preserving states of consent lies in increased state power, increased multilateralism, and especially a strengthening of both constitutional and international legal restrictions on unfettered state action. Not just another book about terrorism, this is a complete theory of constitutional evolution and a sophisticated set of far-reaching policy prescriptions. Frequently digressive, incredibly erudite, and frustratingly difficult to pin down on the political spectrum, Bobbitt aims for the big picture and succeeds.–Brendan Driscoll
Named Works: Terror and Consent: The Wars for the Twenty-first Century (Book) Book reviews 

Source Citation:Driscoll, Brendan. “Terror and Consent: The Wars for the Twenty-first Century.(Brief article)(Book review).” Booklist 104.16 (April 15, 2008): 11(1). General OneFile. Gale. Arvin A Brown Public. 26 May 2008 
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Gale Document Number:A178631117